Wednesday, May 1, 2013

A Little Tool Porn

It's no secret I'm a tool addict and love to make stuff - of all kinds.  Ran across this video of "Mythbusters" Adam Savage and his tool room lathe.



Favorite lines (after a little safety chat) "So, not a toy"... "no, not a toy" (thinks for a second) "although the best toy".

Oh, yeah. 

I can't begin to tell you how much I'd love to have one of those 14x40 lathes, or even something a few inches smaller like a 10x22.  I don't even have the room to leave my Sherline set up, and with a 17" bed, it would fit between the chuck and tail stock of his machine with extra room.  We outgrew this house 15 years ago.  




10 comments:

  1. TechShop has a couple of good sized lathes as well as a couple of milling machines...

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  2. I love it, the only kind of porn I allow in my workshop too, I bet if you sweet talk Mrs. Graybeard she would let you add on to your shop so you can site this lathe... you know sweet talk her...works for me and new tools and machines. She said it is cheaper then me out bar hopping and picking up floozies, and she knows where I am at!

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  3. I love 'em, too.

    Dad was a Tool and Die Maker, so I was exposed to the proper use of all manner of tools from a very early age.

    BTW...this color scheme looks pretty nice!

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  4. Ayep, bona fide tool junkie here from wayyyy back.
    Mostly automotive and heavy truck stuff but I have four(!) roll aways full of tools.
    It's a sickness man, I'm tellin' ya.
    I recently saw a bench sized milling machine on the net and about had a fit!

    Spendy though.
    They also had a small lathe all decked out for about five hundred. That would be real nice to have.
    Alas, the current garage is already way too small for what I already have but the wife says she wants to move this summer.
    I have one demand and one only.
    I'm sure you know what it is, too.

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  5. Hello. Can you suggest some reading? I am an autodidact, and when I want to do something, I read about it first, learn then what questions to ask, read some more and then jump in. I am a wood guy, and wood tools & planes guy, with firearms too. (I like the 85% upper post a lot.) Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. That's the way I work, too. When my wife got me my small lathe, it was the first one I'd ever touched. Likewise, I got a broken CNC mill and got it running and it was the first mill and first computer controlled machine I'd ever touched. I think at some point, you learn more by making a few cuts than by more reading.

      There are many books on the subjects. Machine Shop Trade Secrets is a good book. Sherline's Tabletop Machining is another. They have an excellent page of resources here

      And I did a lot of woodworking for years before touching metal. You can rough cut aluminum on wood working saw just fine, and even steel with the right cutting blades.

      This actually a pretty good question and could merit a whole post.

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    2. Graybeard, (Me too, bearded gray), thanks a lot. Keep you powder dry and have lots of powder. K.

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  6. I haven't touched metalwork for some time, but I do have a pile of links to offer. Even an abbreviated list is long. There are tons of vendors and websites out there. These are just a few of my favorites.

    Army machinist course, full size and larger lathes
    Army manual TC 9-524 Chapter 7
    http://www.machinetoolhelp.com/Learn/armymachinetool/ch7.pdf

    Intro lathe course - modern equipment
    http://its.fvtc.edu/MachShop2/default.htm

    Trust me, you want to poke around here
    http://lathes.co.uk/

    HTRAL - How to run a lathe - South Bend 1930s
    http://wswells.com/
    http://www.wswells.com/data/htral/htral_index.html
    http://www.wswells.com/data/htral/1930_htral.pdf

    Hercus Text Book of Turning
    You may have to look around for a download. I think
    you might have to register to get this one from the 1970s.
    http://www.woodworkforums.com/f189/hercus-text-book-turning-113577/
    http://www.woodworkforums.com/attachments/f189/134742d1271164085-hercus-text-book-turning-hercushandbook.pdf

    Lots of text files containing posts extracted from
    various machinist forums
    http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html

    Newbie oriented vendor, largely for mini-lathes
    http://littlemachineshop.com/

    Buying used, evaluating full size lathes
    http://www.mermac.com/

    Mini lathe newbie info
    http://www.mini-lathe.com/

    Metrology advice from highly opinionated folks,
    included just because I like the site
    www.longislandindicator.com

    Club website, free newsletter & files
    http://neme-s.org/
    http://neme-s.org/NEMES_Gazette.htm
    http://neme-s.org/Model_Engineer_Files/

    Club website, free newsletter & stuff
    http://www.homemetalshopclub.org/index.html
    http://www.homemetalshopclub.org/news/news.html

    Machinery's Handbook - even an older edition is a good
    start and they frequently show up on auction sites
    5th Edition 1916 just to whet your appetite, Table of
    Contents begins page 16
    http://books.google.com/books?id=fTQuAQAAIAAJ

    Couple of good machinist magazines
    http://www.homeshopmachinist.net/home

    Various reference material
    http://shopswarf.orconhosting.net.nz/sindex.html

    Pro-grade photos and discussion of enormous variety of tooling
    http://www.micro-machine-shop.com/
    Randomly selected page ... see?
    http://www.micro-machine-shop.com/quick_change_tool_post_tool_bits.html

    Sherline is indeed nice stuff, and the book SiGB mentioned is good
    Lots of clever ideas in the accessories
    http://sherline.com/

    Cheaper micro-lathe & a good reference site for same
    http://www.taigtools.com/
    http://www.cartertools.com/

    Seig - Chinese clones
    http://www.siegind.com/products.html

    Mini to Full size lathes, just an example of import lathes
    http://www.grizzly.com/products/category/460000|700000

    Jim

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the great list, and sorry for the delay - the multiple links made Blogger think it was SPAM. I had to go retrieve and publish.

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  7. That's about the same size as my toolroom-ish 13x40 ENCO. There's not much I haven't been able to do with it.
    Those Sherlines are still good machines, you just have to work around their limitations.

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