The Home Machinist!

Yep, I do mean spindle brake or lock.

Harold, The endmills won't pull out of a Weldon holder. Remember I use a 17mm wrench on the nut and hold the nice fat Weldon holder or drill chuck in the other hand. The drawbar isn't loose by a long shot. The nut stays tight and the holder has to be tapped out of the taper to remove. I don't think ...

Hand tight, (as tight as I can get with a wrench on one and and the other end in my hand), is as tight as the drawbars need to be. The drawbar pulls the morse taper tool in to the socket where it is held and driven by friction. There is no provision for a drawbar or a tanged arbor in the tailstock r...

Torch, No part of quill on my shoptask 2000 is part of the lathe. If I use a boxend type wrench like the one shown the eBay listing to hold the quill while I tighten the drawbar nut then I won't be able to remove the wrench. It won't come past the factory supplied stepped washer and nut. You may be ...

I just grab the Weldon tool holder or the chuck with one hand and wrench with the other. That gets it as tight as it needs to be. I have never seen any sign of slippage doing that. It doesn't take much force to get an M3 taper to seat and lock up. I do have a couple M3 collets that don't stick out f...

Hi, everyone, I've routed hinge mortice's in aluminum store front glazing metal. It works well. The forces involved are much greater than when routing wood so be very sure that the work and template are securely clamped. It's also very loud. Loud enough to damage your hearing quickly so wear earplug...

Rolky mentioned that you can use carbide router bits for aluminum. You can also use the HHS ones for aluminum or steel. Just keep the speed down to what's appropriate for the metal and keep the feed speed slow. The router bits aren't designed for the edge loads encountered when cutting metal at the ...

I use bed frames a lot. I never even try to to put holes in then with a hand drill motor now. They turn way to fast and I can't get enough pressure on the drill bit. I've ruined a bit or two every time I've tried it. I've learned to remember(mostly) to drill every hole with the drill press before as...

I just loosen the lathe drive belts a little when I use the lathe for a power milling feed so they will slip if I do something really dumb. I have never had any sort of problem doing it. My Shoptask has separate switches for the lathe and mill motors but it only had one power cord for both. Running ...

The "Y" thingie is for driving screw eyes and cup hooks. It does, with practice, work but it's not worth the effort for only or two screws.
Joe

3 in 1 machines have some drawbacks. You must think thru what you plan to do to keeping from spending too much time changing set ups. On the other hand this teaches you to be a better craftsman. The set up changes are an issue if want make money with the machine but in a hobby shop the savings in ov...

I ordered a blackplate for my ShopTask form Grizzly. The central register or raised area on the Shoptask spindle is 100mm across and Grizzly was machined for a 101mm register. I re-machined the blackplate to register on the outside edge of the spindle nose disk and it worked fine. Does anyone know i...