The Home Machinist!

I want to get a milling attachment for my small Atlas lathe. I have heard that one should not use a lathe chuck for holding the endmill. I see many varities of collets, endmill holders etc. for sale online. I don't know what to look for with my application. My lathe spindle is MT2 if that helps. Can...

This is a pedal crank puller I made for an old street bike. The lathe threads were 1/mm, the through bolt is 3/8-24, the bolt was turned to allow it to scew into the puller and bottom onto the spindle, thus pulling the crak off. It looks a tad rough, but it works just fine and did indeed remove the ...

Trying to find a print shop now days in big cities is a task on itself. Print shops here in California are called "Kinkos" and are all over the place displacing formal print shops like a drop of detergent over oil. That's true here too, but someone out there is doing some long-run process...

I used old offset printing blankets on the bottoms of my tool drawers at work and home. You can find some of these at any local printshop. They have no real use for them once dented and wore out. I like these because they clean up nicely, cushion the contents, and grip the stuff to help prevent ever...

Or maybe the first person to make a whole bunch of them happened to pick that dimension. Everyone else just followed suit and a "standard" was created? I guess if it works well, no biggy. In the paper industry each MILL picked their own weight standards, based on the size rolls they create...

I've heard many opinions on this. Will it at least mill within the size that the vice will hold? If I get the miling attachment for a small 6-18 such as mine, how far do need to go with regards to collets and collet closers and such? I had one fella tell me that a 3-jaw drill chuck will do for light...

excellent!

Is there a general rule on press fit sizes for various diameter of bore and pin? Does it change with diameters? This is so common, I would think there would be some "rules of thumb" concerning this procedure. I'm talking about allowing a good snug, secure fit. I'm sure this would vary with...

I wonder it's value if that bottle is full of the metal. I am sure that if it was to be taking to some toxics recycling site the first things that they will do is to cast a guilty trip and take it away for him to later sell it at top dollar with no investment. One of the reason why I suggested to s...

I've done some small scale silverplating, and researched that area quite alot in the past. The worst forms of mercury were mentioned above... when they combine with other elements/compounds. The worst being when they form salts. These will be incidentaly absorbed by the body, and stay there forever,...

Yes, that explains all. I knew of tempering, but was wondering if the air hardening steels were tempered near the same as hss, with the main exception being hss maintains near full strength at high operation temps. I guess it doesn't really matter with a cutting tool, because if it softens during us...

A-2 is a wonderful tool steel but it is not a high speed steel. Different tool steels have different alloys which effects their cost and how they are used. High speed steel has tungsten it. If I remember correctly tungsten has the highest melting point of any known metal. Tungsten gives high speed ...