The Home Machinist!

Thanks again guys , the bulk of what ill be milling will be SS and carbon steel such as guns are made of and w/out this info on the HSS bits I would have put myself in the poor house buying carbide! Any advice on online distrubs that are good to deal w/ and any recomendations on 2flt, 4flt, bottem ...

Roll lathes use dead centers and two jaw chucks fairly frequently in the headstock to turn between centers, though the other end is live. Cylindrical grinders use dead centers in the tailstock almost exclusively, because as has been mentioned, they've got no runout and grinding forces are low. Bench...

Maybe it's just me, but I don't have a preference. Anytime I've been using a manual lathe, the time spent actually cranking handwheels is small compared to all the other gymnastics that need to occur for measuring, changing parts, qualifying tools, et cetera. On the other hand, I wish CNC manufactur...

I agree with a lot of that article. I quickly learned to to not even bother trying to explain what I do; nobody cares, even peers. Which is scary, being in a mechanical engineering program and all. I'm definitely the youngest dude at my shop, by far (22). What's even more striking is the skills gap ...

I have asked a few, and they understand what they do, but it is the 'why" which will make them better in my opinion Rich I have encountered in classes where "why" is discussed that urban legend and misinformation are more commonplace than real information. It would be nice to have ev...

There is nothing inherently limiting on a lathe for surface finish in the region you are talking about. A 10" south bend can be modified to produce 2-3 Ra finishes. Hard physical limits start to crop up with lathes in in <80 angstrom roughness heights, or when diffraction needs to tightly limit...

Ring gage measurement after lapping and what have you: Get a jig borer in good condition. You're going to use the spindle as an accurate transfer gauge. Milling machine spindles are not going to be accurate enough for this, and even a jig bore is pushing it. If you don't have access to an accurate s...

I had written some stuff proving why radians and also the equations on the websites. Until I accidentally unplugged my computer. Oh well. If anyone's interested, I can do it again. Long story short, you can't use sine/cosine to do arc length. Also, the equations on the first webpage is correct, and ...

Uh, I've made one of those before. Drill hit a hard spot - it twisted perfectly.

I'm more apt to believe that the drill was stopped abruptly at some point in it's life.

I stick a strap clamp stud on any drillpress I'm using, no matter what kind of job. Make sure the thing holding the part, or the part itself if freehand, is up against the stud. Also, make sure the part is up against the stud on the windward side, if you know what I mean. Doesn't do any good if you'...

What lead me to my initial assessment is that Foundations deals mostly with accuracy standards, and really isn't something a home shop will ever deal with in any form unless they go to repair a machine tool. It's a neat book, and maybe the local library will have it. Very few people who purchase the...

At 150 dollars new, it's a steal. Consider most college textbooks are over $100, and that many are over $150. Foundations of mechanical accuracy, in my opinion, is at least an order of magnitude better than any textbook I've read in terms of information and how it's presented. You could spend far mo...