i'll soon be making swarf

[Gazz292]

Recently joined this board, and got some great advise about getting my first mini lathe,

Was origionaly looking at the sieg C3 and it's brothers, but i was told about the real bull CJ18, as being a little better put together, and a little cheaper, plus a 4 inch chuck included and a decent sized back plate,

i was all ready to sell a few more items on ebay to get the last 75 squids needed to get a CJ18 from that bloke down in laaandahhn, when i spotted a second hand one on ebay that had just been put on,

A few minutes umm-ing and ahhh-ing, and i decided to take a punt, and have bought this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/110653275767

Checked the blokes history on ebay, he bought it new from that laaandahhn place in july '09, so it's about a year and a half old (dont take my word on that, maths is not my strong point)
says he's used it half a dozen times to do a moddeling project, it looks pretty good in the photo's (another mini-lathe i saw on ebay claimed he'd only used it once for polishing, shame the photo's showed a drill but in the tailstock, a cutter in the tool post and tons of swarf all over the bed)

i've got about 75 quid left to buy some accessories for it now, it comes with some cutting tools, a centre drill, tailstock chuck, halogen lamp and safety glasses, so i don't need to rush out and get things, just a few lumps of metal to turn into swarf (nice chunk of magnesium would be nice, for the effect when i chuck the chips in the incinerator but i only have a powder extinguisher in the garage, so i'd best not cut mag. for now.

Anyway, it seems like it'll fit in the boot of the smart, if it dosent, i can put it on the passengers seat, and my GF can sit in the boot  lol

It'll be a little while till i use it, i have to clean the garage out properly, build a nice strong workbench for it, then i'll be stripping it down and checking it over as if it was a new one, just hope the last owner did that, and the bearings arent buggered from casting sand making it's way into them or stuff like that,

[j45on]

looks like a very tidy bargain well done 
I only find second hand bargains right after I have bought a new one

[bigmini]

That's a pretty good deal. I got my slightly bigger lathe brand new late last year. I'm still mainly using it to make arbors and tools to use with the lathe itself. It generates its own projects as well as the means to complete them  .

Here's hoping to see pics when you get it up and running.

[andyf]

Nice one, Gazz   . Your link only pops up for a second before the "listing has ended" notice appeared, but a bit of fast fingerwork to get a screenshot shows a very tidy looking machine, with the 4" chuck. Good price; I'm surprised there weren't other bidders.

The "tool in the toolpost" has a bright blue painted shank, so could be one of the Chinese affairs with a brazed-on carbide tip. You may find that it gives disappointing results before the tip falls off, and that you want to spend some of the £££ you have saved on something better.

Happy turning!

Andy
  

[Gazz292]

ahhh. nuts, thought i was being clever by shortening the ebay auction code thingy,
http://tinyurl.com/6cyg23s does that one work? tiny url'd the full address.

I figured the tools wouldent be of great quality, but better than the tools i'd have got with the lathe had i bought it new.. i.e. none at all,
i want to learn how to grind my own tools, need to fetch my bench grinder from my parents, then get some decent wheels for it and make/buy a grinding jig and decent rest,

The 'halogen work light' is just a cheapie low voltage bedside lamp i've seen, but i'm sure i can make it into something better, make a new head out of alli tube, a paralell bar arm thing... where you move it to any position and it stays put, like on me lighted magnifier i have at my solder station,

i got it on a buy it now, it had been up for a very short time when i spotted it, so i thought hard and fast, and decided to go for it before anyone else got it.

Think the first item i buy with the 'spare cash' will be a dti and stand, i have a dial gauge, but i cut the mounting bracket off as i got it to time the injection pump up on engines, thus i use a threaded bush type holder in the back of the pump, but from what i have read, a lever type dti is better.

[Brass_Machine]

Nice one Gazz... the extra money for tooling is going to come in handy. Show us pictures of it when you pic it up.

Eric

[raynerd]

It looks great Gazz, similar to a machine I had up until a while ago. There is a nice little grinding jig/rest in Workshop Practice 38 - Tool and Cutter Sharpening by Harrold Hall. Only a few quid for a copy off amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tool-Cutter-Sharpening-Workshop-Practice/dp/1854862413

I`ve not made it yet, but I have now seen two of them made and they work really well. It is certainly on my "soon" to do list!

ahhh. nuts, thought i was being clever by shortening the ebay auction code thingy,
http://tinyurl.com/6cyg23s does that one work? tiny url'd the full address.

I figured the tools wouldent be of great quality, but better than the tools i'd have got with the lathe had i bought it new.. i.e. none at all,
i want to learn how to grind my own tools, need to fetch my bench grinder from my parents, then get some decent wheels for it and make/buy a grinding jig and decent rest,

The 'halogen work light' is just a cheapie low voltage bedside lamp i've seen, but i'm sure i can make it into something better, make a new head out of alli tube, a paralell bar arm thing... where you move it to any position and it stays put, like on me lighted magnifier i have at my solder station,

i got it on a buy it now, it had been up for a very short time when i spotted it, so i thought hard and fast, and decided to go for it before anyone else got it.

Think the first item i buy with the 'spare cash' will be a dti and stand, i have a dial gauge, but i cut the mounting bracket off as i got it to time the injection pump up on engines, thus i use a threaded bush type holder in the back of the pump, but from what i have read, a lever type dti is better.

[AdeV]

Nice one, Gazz   . Your link only pops up for a second before the "listing has ended" notice appeared, but a bit of fast fingerwork to get a screenshot shows a very tidy looking machine, with the 4" chuck. Good price; I'm surprised there weren't other bidders.

Andy - try scrolling down after the "listing has ended" appears - the original listing should be below it....

Gazz - nice catch there, looks like a really nice lathe. You'll find that the "few quid" you have left for tooling will soon disappear, followed by £££ more.... at least, that's what I discovered.

[andyf]

Andy - try scrolling down after the "listing has ended" appears - the original listing should be below it....

Ooo er - so it does, Ade! I see that the lathe is in your neck of the woods, too.

Andy

[jim]

good buy!

it should fit in the "boot", just make sure pack it well, a lathe can roll very easy!! (i know, it happened to me!).

choose your tooling wisely, i have found the best general tools are HSS, but everyone has there own preference, post on here and you'll get plenty of help!

if you are lacking the tools for grinding/regrinding tools, i'm happy to sharpen some up to get you started.

[AdeV]

Ooo er - so it does, Ade! I see that the lathe is in your neck of the woods, too.

Heh, so it is, I hadn't spotted that...

[saw]

I have the exacley same lathe. 

[Gazz292]

well, i'm now the owner of a lathe,

bit of a fun drive over, nottingham to the wirral, tomtom wanted to take me all motorways, going south, then west, bit more south, west, north, west and probably a bit of east thrown in for good measure,

i went directly north west-ish, matlock, buxton, over the cat and fiddle run to macclesfield and so on, took 10 minutes longer than the motorway route, and 25 miles less, and much nicer scenery.

lathe does look very lightly used, the bloke said he used it to make a few parts for models out of alli, then threw back a dust sheet to show me the models, i was expecting a steam engine, maybe a rocket, aeroplane or something like that,
wasnt expecting to come face to face with a life size dalek 
he'd made 2 of em, and used the lathe to make the fancy bits on the ray gun and plunger arm thingy,

it fitted in the boot of the smart easily, along with the other bits, then the 2 and a half hour drive home, going thru rushhour, got off the motorway just as it started to get busy, then hardly saw any traffic again, pretty quiet in the hills,
got a stabbing pain in my abdomen so had to stop a few times due to the pain, stupid me forgot to take some pills with me, so i had to put up with it, but got home just before 7, layed on the bed just for a minute, and woke up 5 hours later,

Now to read up on the lathe, i think it's imperial... dosent seem to be a choice of metric or imperial according to the ebay ads, the change gears mention TPI's, which is imperial i believe, i'm a metric man, so will see what i can do about it... i have read the lead screw is metric, but something else is imperial, but i'll figure it out later.

Going to go on a shopping trip to arc sometime, got theire catalouge thru the post today, so much easier to find things i never knew i wanted in a catalouge, online you have to know what your after and look it up on the shop site,
the book i want to get from arc, the one on the mini lathes, is out of stock apparantly, typical, but there's plenty more i want,

then i'll have to find a firendly metal supplier in my area, or more idealy a workshop that makes big things from lumps of metal, and has a scrap bin full of off cuts that are just right for a mini lathe.

[andyf]

Next time, try the A50 to Newcastle under Lyme, and then the M6 and M56.

Daleks? Oh well, each to his own, I suppose.

The leadscrew will either be 16 TPI or 1.5mm pitch. Put a rule marked in 16ths alongside, and see if the marks coincide exactly with the threads over 2 or 3 inches. If it's 16 TPI and you want metric, contact Amadeal for a new leadscrew and half-nuts to match it. Machine Mart do a conversion kit for their CL300M (rebranded Sieg C3), but I think it may be too short. Little Machine Shop in California (nice people to deal with) do one for a 14" Seig: http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=2026&category= which will possibly fit a Real Bull, but it won't have an endfloat adjuster nut on the tailstock end.

The feedscrews will be metric even if the dials on the topslide, topslide and tailstock are marked in imperial. The approximation that 0.040" = 1mm will be used on the dials, so if you want them metric, get or make new dials and they will then read accurately.

For general help and advice, join the Yahoo 7x12 Minilathe Group. Though I don't have a Seig or Real Bull myself, I'm one of its moderators for some reason  , so I'll let you in  . The 7x10 Group is perhaps best avoided; there's a lot of off-topic political ranting on it.

Andy

[Gazz292]

i finaly got the lathe out of the boot of the car, and have had a good look at it,

it is metric after all, the charts giving the required change gears for metric thread widths, and which gear to use in the threading indicator, tho i cant seem to see anything on the gears to indicate which they are, have to count the teeth i guess

i had a bit of a play just running the lathe, it's in the living room floor atm, bloke i bought it off says he never used the leadscrew under power, tho the tumbler gear was always engaged, he never locked the half nuts down, and the gears were set up to give an ectremely slow feed, using a couple of steel gears that have about 20 teeth, which are not mentioned on the screw cutting gear guide,

i was messing about and set the change gears up to give the fastest leadscrew feed, and promptly stripped one of the tumble reverse gears teeth, seems theres a bit too much friction in the leadscrew, plus i didnt set the backlash on the gears with a piece of paper (should have learnt that from my 1/6th scale buggy, i've had to do it so many times) so they were prolly running tight,
ahh well, i was planning on going to arc to get a dti and a few other little bits, i'll see if he does some steel tumbler gears, i would like to run all steel gears eventually, but that'll be when i change the headstock bearings to taper rollers, and can change the main gears to steel as well,

The cross slide has tons of backlash, not just some that you can feel, but i a blind man could see the backlash, but i plan to strip it down and re-build it, and set it all up nicely,

i would love to modify the gib strips like how bogs showed with darrens lathe, but i dont have any way to doing that with the tools i have, or the machining knowlage to do so, so i'll have to make the best i can, maybe get some of the bras gibstrips arc sell or something.

[dbvandy]

One of the first and best mods you can make is a cam lock for the tail stock.  I did mine right away and the hour I spent on it has saved me days.  If you keep this lathe adjusted and clean it will hold .0005 all day long.

This is an example of what I have done with mine:

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=4425.0

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=4413.0

you need to go ahead an buy some spares:

the transmission gears are plastic...  they will get broken
timing belt and two plastic drive cogs

Have fun and pay attention.

Doug

[Gazz292]

tailstock is the latest version with a camlock, i thought it was the older version before i got the lathe, as the photo's on ebay didnt show the tailstock, and i could see a nut thinking that was to tighten it to the ways,

i think it's the 25 tooth pinion i've broken, and arc are out of them till end of april, typical,
anyone know of a place to get steel versions of these gears, i have found steel change gears, and the main headstock gears, but not the tumble reverser gears or the one on the back of the headstock.

[andyf]

.....i think it's the 25 tooth pinion i've broken, and arc are out of them till end of april, typical,
anyone know of a place to get steel versions of these gears, i have found steel change gears, and the main headstock gears, but not the tumble reverser gears or the one on the back of the headstock.

 
It may be a good idea to leave a plastic gear in the train, to act as a mechanical fuse in case of a jam. The best place for one is on the leadscrew, where torque is at its highest. That being so, it's odd that you broke a tumbler gear.

But it's your lucky day! I have a 25T tumbler gear (plastic) left over from a project, and you are welcome to it. Send me a PM with your address. It is for a Sieg C3, but I'm sure it will fit your RB.

Andy.

[dbvandy]

Good thing about the cam lock.  I love the mod I did to mine, well worth it.  www.littlemachineshop.com has EVERY part for that lathe and a ton of other items.  They are in California, so shipping might get you a bit, but it is better than not having it.  They also have face plates, chucks, and tooling, so you can spend all of your allowance there pretty fast.

What a lot of people are doing and I might do as well it have a metal big gear on the spindle and a plastic small gear on the input shaft in the transmission.  that way you still have the weak fuse n the gears, but the input shaft is MUCH easier to change.  And another thing is it will run quieter.

The next weakest link is the large drive toothed pulley.  If you have a severe jam, it will shatter and not damage anything.  Mine was weakened from the removal when I replaced the transmission gears and finally broke in half during a plung cut (it did not feel like I was overloading it).  I ordered a new one from LMS, but had some 6160 stock about the same size and made one so I could continue working. 

Also, just in case you have not been there: http://www.mini-lathe.com/ has mods and suggestions and tons of cool ideas.  well worth a look!

Happy swarfing!

Doug

[foozer]

Like mentioned, you'll want to keep a weak link in place. Commercial laundry dryers all the pulley to chain drive gear reduction utilise a plastic gear in the final step down (driver). Anything that may cause the drum to jam with cause plastic gear failure. Better to replace a 5 buck gear than the 300 buck motor.

Robert

[Gazz292]

it deffinately makes sense what you are saying,
i think i'll replace the gears with metal when i can afford them, 1 or 2 at a time, like i say, i want to one day convert the headstock to taper roller bearings, so will do the gears in there then (if i dont strip them before 

and eventually get all metal gears except the easiest to replace one,

i'm not sure why the tumbler gear went, maybe somethings out of alignment, my fault really as the lathe had been set up with the lowest gearing and left like that, last owner never operated the half nuts he said, so when i changed the gears to give the fastest carridge drive speed, it didnt like it,
it was really bogging the motor down, and like a plonker, i kept power on to see if it would clear 

i think what happened was the tumbler gear lever tried to jump out, got a little way, then the gears went, as i've noticed since that when in forwards gear, the lever will try to disengage from the torque, maybe the spring holding the pin in the detent is weak, tho the detents do seem pretty shallow,

i assume the torque trying to throw it out of gear is normal?

[dbvandy]

Check and make sure your lead screw turns easily.  Mine was very tight and I had to polish the bearing surface on the non gear end.  Also, check the indent in the back of the head for the forward and reverse.  you might need to make them a bit deeper so that the handle will be solid and not move accidentally.

Doug

[Gazz292]

you know, i can be thick at times,

i was re-reading bogs post about darrens lathe, and a few other posts he's made on other forums about making these lathes better, and one of his bits was about setting the leadscrew up paralell,

then the light bulb went on.... as i wind the carriage along manually, half nuts disengaged, i can hear the half nuts beginning to rub on the lead screw, the grating gets louder the closer to the tailstock the carriage gets..... 

and where the the carriage when i put the high gearing on to move it faster... yup, about 3/4 of the way accross the bed towards the tailstock, no wonder it had trouble moving the carriage, the darn thing was binding 

i really must leave the lathe alone now, untill i have the workshop done, as i'll just bugger more things up on it playing around, when i know i need to strip it right down and re-build it, doing a few mods as i go along.

[andyf]

Your lathe is very similar to a Sieg C3, so this guide to tidying one of those up might be worth a look:
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/projects/prepguides/C3%20Mini-Lathe%20Preparation%20Guide.pdf .

The 25T gear has been consigned to the tender mercies of Royal Mail. Odd that in the UK we post things to one another and the Royal Mail delivers (most of) them, whereas in the US things are mailed but the Postal Service delivers them.

Andy

 

[Hobby-Machinist]

Doug,

You've really made super progress in a short time with your import.

If I may ask, how did you learn to use it so fast- did you have a mentor?

Just curious, because you have really advanced fast.

Thanks,


Nelson