The Home Machinist!

If a multi-flute Countersink chatters (when using it for what it's intended for) then you are either running it too fast or not feeding it hard enough or BOTH. That's what we're saying, but if you don't have a pretty rigid setup then a high enough feed rate might not be realistic. I've used plenty ...

I literally need it to make one part out of 1" steel. I am making thumb screws. Maybe stainless if it would hold up better? The damn things are $14 a piece to buy. Rather make them for $3. I make a lot of my own screws, for some reason screws are just about my favorite things to machine. That'...

How is one of these? http://www.shars.com/clamp-type-knurling-tool-1 the amount that physically is held in the tool holder on that looks like it would be very small? The screw looks a bit wimpy to me, but I have no first-hand experience with that tool from that seller. They state that tool will do ...

I'll second what John said. I have a couple of the 6 flute type, and for countersinking they chatter like the dickens unless you're real aggressive with the feed and have the rigidity in the machine to handle it. For light chamfers where not much material is being removed they work great without ch...

John's right on the money, but I'll expand a little bit on that. I had similar results my first few attempts, and I was using a much weaker machine than what is being discussed here. You definitely need to have the tool post and compound locked down pretty solid, to start with. But the key thing for...

I'll second what John said. I have a couple of the 6 flute type, and for countersinking they chatter like the dickens unless you're real aggressive with the feed and have the rigidity in the machine to handle it. For light chamfers where not much material is being removed they work great without cha...

mars-red, Could you provide a little information on the green belts used? It appears they can be made to order, which could prove to be invaluable to some folks. An example might be for use as the drive for the oil pump for a model 1290-D Sunnen hone. The belt, to my knowledge, is no longer availab...

I've posted this elsewhere, but thought it would be good content for the forums here too. The cross feed handwheel and graduated collar on my Rivett were borderline absurd. The collar was 1/2" in diameter, and even with only 50 marks graduated around it, they were very close together. The colla...

Wow, how is it I never posted to this thread?? When I joined, I had an Enco 3-in-1 machine and a turn of the century Rivett watchmakers lathe. Things have improved a bit, and I now have a great old Rivett 8" Precision for my larger work and a new Sincere watchmakers lathe for the really small, ...

Heartbreaking.

Mark, that's correct - mine is the 3990. They seem to have discontinued the plain spring model. I like the air "spring", no complaints on that. I do think a good counterweight would be even better though. Last week I made up a 6 tooth gear cutter, and an arbor to use it in the mill, and tr...

A 1/4" DOC in A36 with that mill is amazing! What kind of end mill did you use? I ordered one of their tooling packages with the machine, and it came with a set of inexpensive TiN coated end mills... it was one of those. Based on my past experience with "TiN coated" chinese cutting t...