The Home Machinist!

I built milling attachments for two of my lathes thru the years and while I won't say they're as good as even a modest milling machine, you can build a lot more parts with a milling attachment that you have than with a milling machine that you do not have. The one I have now is used on a G4003G and ...

There seems to be both ends of the spectrum presented here: springy to monolithic. Epanzella: Do you have a picture you can post? --earlgo I think I got this picture thingy figured out. One pic is of my 11 inch Logan. I was replacing a lantern post so I made a block as a tool holder and made a tape...

There seems to be both ends of the spectrum presented here: springy to monolithic. Epanzella: Do you have a picture you can post? --earlgo What's the deal with this site? It's such a hassle trying to post pictures. It says they're too big. I tried to resize them but it didn't work. The other site I...

I've found that the biggest improvement to parting is to replace the compound with a solid block. It makes the entire setup much more rigid. I've done that on my last 2 lathes (Logan & Grizzly). I only use the compound when I need it.

Everytime I need to hold something soft in a 3 or 4 jaw chuck I make a slit ring to fit out of nylon or aluminum. I have quite a collection of them now and can usually one find the right size that I made for a previous project.

Downwindtracker2 wrote: We cut the speed in 1/2 by adding a planetary geared pulley.

Great idea! Where did you get that pulley?
Ed P

PeteH wrote:Re damping material -- do they still sell that fibrous, greenish-black clay-like stuff that (I think) was called "engineer's putty" ? (We called it "dum-dum".) That worked pretty well for damping vibrations.

Duct Seal. Street name, Monkey Sheet.

There is no stud, rafter or joist spacing that is 19.2 inches that I ever saw. There's 16 O/C and 24 O/C.

As a home machinist who doesn't own a factory or have employees running machines night and day, do I want a machine I can afford that will wear out 20 years after I'm dead or a machine I can't afford that will wear out 70 years after I'm dead?

My father brought home a Walther model 4 in 7.65 mm (32acp) pistol from WW2. The hammer is broken and I'd like to make another one. The problem is that 80% of the hammer is missing so I don't know what it looked like.

I usually pinch a rule between the cutter tip and fresh turned part. The rule will stand straight vertical when the tool height is correct. Otherwise, the rule will lean toward (too low) or away (too high) from you. Yeah I forgot to mention I use both the ruler as well as the 60 degree center. I ju...

What is the tolerance on center height? Is it sufficient to set tool height by eyeballing a 60 deg center or do you need a gizmo?