Re: Lathe on the way
- From: "DoN. Nichols" <dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 23 Mar 2008 01:48:51 GMT
On 2008-03-22, Bill Schwab <bschwab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Don,
Congratulations! This should be a lot better than the belt
driven one -- as long as you manage to avoid crashes. (Belts are more
forgiving of crashes.)
That part bothered me just a little, but it's not a good idea to crash
things into machines anyway. It has a "fiber gear" to avoid total
loses.
Good!
They do not sell it online because they had problems with people
buying the wrong one. Wanting to cash in on the extra 10% off for web
orders, I figured I'd wait. However, I will get one to have on hand.
If you have a spare on hand, you are less likely to need it. :-)
O.K. I got my 12x24 Clausing from the flat-bed high truck which
delivered it (pre-assembled to the pedestal) to my pickup truck by
sliding it down a ramp made from five 10' 2x4s bolted edge on to three
cross-boards on the bottom. I then drove it up the driveway, backed up
to the garage, and slid it down the same ramp to the floor.
I think I would call for help before trying that.
I had help from the driver sliding it into the pickup (3/4 ton,
4WD), and help from a friend an my wife when sliding it down the ramp
into the garage. The friend helped me pull it, and my wife "tailed" on
a line looped several times through a carabiner clip so she did not need
much pull to control the motion of the lathe down the ramp.
I had no instructions (a used lathe, after all, but what I did
was to jack up each end of the pallet and put cribbing under it -- first
2x4, then 4x4 then 2x4 on top of 4x4. Once I could do that, I could
slide the legs under the long custom pallet to which the lathe was
bolted.
That makes sense, and I will probably end up doing that. Did you start
out with a pry-bar to get it off the ground, or is there a slicker way?
A pry-bar plus a length of 2x4 acting as a longer pry-bar. But
it was easier to get hooked into the upper layer of the pallet for the
first motion.
I would have used the engine hoist from the start for unloading
from the pickup -- except that I had to unload the pickup to drive over
to a friend's place to borrow the engine hoist. I've since acquired my
own. :-)
I removed the pallet, pulled it clear, and rotated the lathe so
the headstock was towards the column of the engine hoist, and lowered it
onto the floor. This allowed the legs to straddle it.
Understood about the headstock next to the column of the hoist - that is
what I plan to use to get the lathe onto the stand (I hope<g>). It
should work, assuming my mill is any example.
Good.
If that
orientation had not been possible, I would have lowered it onto cribbing
again, removed the engine hoist, and using a rolling floor jack, removed
2" of cribbing height per cycle.
I can largely picture that, but what is the goal? If you can't straddle
the lathe with the legs, would not want to keep it on cribbing and/or
just lift it to your truck? Or, are you simply giving instructions for
getting back down in that case?
It had to be lifted to unbolt the pallet. Once it was in the
air, the choices were to lower it onto the legs of the hoist (counter
productive) or onto cribbing so the hoist could be removed.
Note that the 12x36" Jet which we got at work back around 1985
or so was brought in by professional riggers, but it was pre-assembled
to its base, too. (The motor was in the base, IIRC, and lots of wiring
in there, too. So it was brought in, the crate disassembled from around
it, it was lifted clear of the pallet and that removed, too -- all by
professionals.
The real worry was that it (and the Bridgeport clone) were being
mounted on a raised computer type lab floor. The trick was to put the
load bads over the supported intersections of the floor panels where
there was a jack column.
Once the truck does its part, this will be on a garage floor. I am not
sure I would want to try it on raised floor =:0
We had no choice -- since the work needed to remove not only
that room's raised floor, but the one before it through which it came
would have been a major problem -- especially with the conduit and
plumbing below the floor. At least there was a nice long ramp before
the first room which would serve as the first test of whether it would
support what was being moved.
Enco tells me it holds 3 gallons of hydraulic fluid!!!
That's on the way too. I ended up buying a a Rohm ball bearing chuck
and an arbor. It was a LOT cheaper than the Jacobs chuck that I might
eventually get (and have on an R8 arbor for my mill).
You'll also prefer it to the Jacobs key type chuck, as long as
you aren't using left-hand drill bits. I keep a Jacobs on an
appropriate arbor for just that need. :-)
I really enjoy my Jacobs chuck, and will probably end up buying another
one to live on a 3MT arbor - later.
Wait until you've done a few projects with the Rohm keyless
chuck. (I do presume that the Rohm is keyless and the Jacobs is keyed,
though both make both styles. And I have a nice Jacobs keyless on my
drill press (which came with a 5/8" or 3/4" clone of a Jacobs chuck --
always too big for metalworking with the slowest speed available from
the spindle. :-)
Assuming I know nothing about running a lathe (not far from the truth),
any good reading assignments?
[snip]
Thanks!
I have a couple of Audel books, but I
find them to be short on teaching: great references though. The Home
Machinist's Handbook by Brinney looks helpful.
I've not seen it, but I might expect it to be aimed for lighter
machines.
True, but it still has been useful at times.
For that matter, I learned a lot from the manual for my Unimat
SL-1000, including tricks which I have not seen documented in manuals
for larger machines. :-)
The "manual" with the lathe will give you details about the
lathe, but not instructions on how to use it.
It is actually pretty good - one of the best I have seen on a Chinese
machine.
Hmm ... a significant improvement from one for the Jet from
around 1980-85.
BTW I would suggest that you retire the 4-station turret toolpost
And instead get a BXA sized quick-change toolpost to put on
there. If you've got the money, start with an Aloris starter
set. Otherwise, go for a Phase-II set of the wedge style, not
the piston style (more rigid and less chance of the locking arm
swinging into the path of the chuck jaws). If you go Phase-II,
remove the 8mm setscrews which hold the tools into the holders
and replace them with ones from a box of US made ones (A box of
100 is quite cheap compared to the price you would pay at Home
Despot on a per-each basis. The supplied setscrews are likely to
split or round out and become very difficult to loosen unless
the Chinese screws have improved in quality since I got mine.
The rest of the toolpost and holders has been quite
satisfactory.
I believe that to be excellent advice. It sounds very familiar from my
earlier research on this purchase. Given what the IRS is going to do to
me in a few weeks, it will have to wait. I almost didn't buy the lathe
to be honest.
O.K. So keep your eyes open for sales for the Phase-II wedge
style set. I got mine from such a sale -- choosing to pay more for the
wedge style over the piston style.
[ ... ]
Beyond an opportunity to fiddle with the new toy, the cross-section is
too deep to easily side mill (should have thought to buy long end-mills
while I was at it), but with an R8 collet (to save vertical space) and
some cranking, my mill should do the job with a fly cutter.
Arrggghhh! You're going to stand it on end? How are you going
to support the upper end? Same problem as you would have holding it in
the lathe chuck. Too long for its cross-section. You'll try to
compensate by cranking the milling vise tighter and probably crush the
square tubing to rectangular or worse.
It worked very nicely once before. Making pairs of these things, I
clamped the ends together and took light cuts. In fairness, those were
a little shorter than the parts for the current job.
If you had two side by side, and firmly clamped that way, it
would be a lot better than one at a time.
Mount it sideways in the vise, mill one side of each (plus
a little over half-way through the other two sides, then set up a stop
on the table so you can mount each piece to line up with the previous
cut when you do the final cut.
To clarify, I would bring the stop into contact with the lower end of
the first cut, tighten, and then move the part, right? My usual stops
would probably trick me; they work nicely, but always seem to move a
little when tightened - not a problem the way I use them. However, a
v-block and a parallel or something held in place with clamps should do it.
I would just make a cut through a bit over half of the height of
each one not worrying about the end stop then. Then rotate one piece 90
degrees, so there is both a top and a bottom section machined together.
Set the stop to press on a bottom section of the machined area, lock it,
and then move the X-axis to bring the edge of the end mill just barely
contact with the end. IIRC, cigarette rolling papers are supposed to be
good for this -- moisten one, and stick it on the end of the machined
surface, and bring the X-axis in until the endmill just whisks the paper
away -- you are then within 0.001".
Now -- lock the X-axis, stop the spindle, crank the Y-axis clear
in such a direction so you will be doing conventional milling not climb
milling when you bring the mill back into contact, loosen the vise, and
rotate the workpiece so the long un-milled part is on top and the long
machined part is on the bottom in contact with the work stop. Tighten
the vise, mill through the un-machined work (with a little overlap),
loosen the vise, crank the Y-axis back to where it was before, and clamp
the next half-done workpiece against the stop. Repeat until all are
done on that end. Then carefully cut to final length on one side of the
other end of all parts (perhaps setting the stop at the already milled
in now if all are to be the same length), and machine each one top flip
bottom and on to the next.
Or -- if you have a horizontal mill, put a 5" milling cutter of
perhaps 1/8" thickness or so in and cut through the whole end in one
pass. (yes, those old horizontal spindle milling machines still have
their uses. :-)
Not long ago I saw a picture of a Swedish(??) vertical/horizontal mill.
Interesting looking thing.
Yes -- those are nice machines, and I wish that I had one, and
sufficient electric power to run one properly.
THANKS!!
You're welcome.
Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: <dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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