Hi everyone i am a new member from Dorking

[t20]

Hi i am Mike Lewis i am 53 and did 2 years of a four year Mechanical Engineering apprenticeship with Decca when i was 16.
I attended Brooklands technical colledge in Weybridge Surrey.
That was the last time i used a lathe, now i find myself wanting a lathe and have an idea of making my own Air Rifle i don't know why i just fancy doing it.
So if anyone can recommend a reasonable hobby lathe i would be gratefull.
I havent told the wife yet so lets keep it between ourselves for now.

[DaveH]

Hi Mike 

Hello and welcome to MadModder 

So you want a lathe, you do know this could be a slippery path of no return 
Join in, have some fun

 
DaveH

[Ronkh]

Hi Mike and welcome!

So you want to buy lathe?
Be careful, once you've started you cannot stop!

As a general question which is open in regards to Mikes question.  Is there any specific material that has to be used regarding air-rifles for the UK?
If he wanted it rifling, where could he get this done and would it be expensive?

Ron from Redhill!!

pm me if you'd like.

[Brass_Machine]

Hiya Mike 

Welcome to the collective

Look for this book: The Modern Pneumatic Airgun: a step by step guide to building your own

I haven't bought it yet, but will soon. I have heard good things about it though.

Lathe? How much room and what's the budget?

Eric

[t20]

hi thanks for the replies, first things first I have to build a workshop/shed 12' * 12' I thought would be good. I have read that I should not install a lathe on a wooden floor so I will raise the concrete base under where the lathe will sit and build the floor around it.
Do you think that this would be overkill for something like a myford ml7 or such like?

As for the Air Rifle I have been in touch with the author of The Modern Pneumatic Air gun: Mr Howard Buckley and at the moment he is out of stock of the book, but will email me when he has one.

From Utube and other sites I believe  that the main material will be aluminium and i was going to rob a barrel out of an old springer gun that i have, i will also be buying a premade air reservoir this will be safer than me attempting to make one until my skill level gets better than none.

So my plan is build a workshop, buy a lathe ml7? budget for lathe going to be about £500-700 pounds either  rebuild lathe for a project  to familiarise my self with the workings  then build air rifle.

Its not till you write it down that you realise the task in hand, and all without her indoors catching on (at least not till its too late) lol

[spuddevans]

Hi Mike  welcome to Madmodder

I too am without a workshop at the present, the best advice I've been given regarding building a workshop is if it's a timber construction (rather than a block build), make the dimensions to be whole multiples of the standard sheeting size, 8 x 4 in old money (2440mm x 1220mm in bright new pennies) as it saves on cuts and material wastage(and we all know a waist is a terrible thing to mind ).

I hope to build a 16ft by 8ft workshop a bit later in the year (got to save up some more pennies 1st.


Tim

[krv3000]

HI and welcome

[t20]

Thanks for all the kind words and good advice,  looks like a good place to stick around

Mike

[Stilldrillin]

Hi Mike.

Welcome to the  Collective. 

Yes! Stick around. You've lots to learn, and the answers are all available on here, somewhere! 

Above all...... Join in, have fun. We do! 

David D

[picclock]

Hi Mike

Nice to hear from someone relatively local (Ashtead, near Epsom). I only have a 7x14 and a Mill but if you ever get stuck for bits your welcome to pop round. PM me for address. I have a fair selection, and am now quite proficient at grinding HSS lathe tools. I have done a fair bit since becoming interested but now prefer to work mainly with steel unless the part has minimal stresses or needs to be of light weight. I think Crawley Metals is the nearest metal merchant, otherwise its all online purchase. If you find a local scrappy who will supply let me know. Good luck with your new adventure, and if your working with Aluminium don't forget to check out Anodising, as it hardens, protects and makes stuff look really smart.

Best Regards

picclock

[Miner]

Hi Mike,
And welcome. A few thoughts if that's ok with you? Unless your building air pistols, You might want to seriously consider a long bed Myford. You'd need it for air rifle barrels. And I think that a Myford in good shape would be a wise decision for what your wanting to do. You'll sooner or later need all the accuracy you can get from any lathe you buy. I'm not really up on information about air rifles or pistols. I know a lot more about the centerfire guns, But your U.K. gun laws are too restrictive for that. Walther? and a few more top manufacture's do offer proper barrel blanks that are state of art for accuracy and are priced to suit. There's a lot of gunsmithing forums around and you could learn a huge ammout that directly transfers over from centerfire machining to the air guns.

Pete

[hopefuldave]

Hi Mike, from near Guildford, so not so far away!

I second the "long bed" suggestion, as otherwise you'll be limited to pistols if you want to make barrels... There are some interesting resources re drilling and rifling barrels on t'net, materials may be difficult to find, though - one good source of decent steel is Transit etc. half-shafts, once annealed you end up with a few feet of good quality high-tensile steel around an inch-and-a-half thick,  then it's time to learn about "gun drilling", an interesting field full of high-pressure pumps for coolant, D-bits, hardened drill bushings etc.!

I've had a go at anodizing, it's not as difficult as it might seem - battery acid and distilled water, a hefty battery charger, graphite brazing electrode rods (with the copper stripped off in Ferric Chloride PCB etchant), a plastic bucket and away you go! The real difficulty seems to be getting the dyes in small quantities (I tried inkjet-printer ink, with some surprises - who'd have though that black ink would give a wonderful copper-bronze colour?). The hard bit seems to be preparing the surface well enough before it goes in the tank - *any* marks or scratches will be more obvious once it's anodized...

As you're not too far away, you could have a look at Warco's offerings (they're just outside Godalming), they have various sizes and shapes of imported lathes/mills etc. (closed on weekends, though - helpful that!), or if you're up for a challenge there are a lot of small industrial machines coming up on Ebay - a bit more hassle in the transport / powering / installation, but a decent one will do a lot more than the smaller hobby lathes at around the same price, and Ebay tooling tends to be cheaper in the larger sizes! I always think "You can do small stuff on a big lathe, but not big stuff on a small lathe".

If you go the industrial route and need to produce your own 3-phase, there are folks on here (myself included) who know a bit about VFDs, phase convertors etc. to help you along the way

Dave H. (the other one)

[doubleboost]

Hi
Mike
Welcome to Madmodder
John

[t20]

Hi everyone sorry its taken a while for me to reply (busy weekend)


Thanks for the advise on the long bed, I have been  searching for a lathe and was leaning towards a boxford maybe an AUD as it has both screw cutting ability and power feeds, also seen a couple of utube vids with home made cnc milling machines, that looks like good stuff.

About the Air rifle, i considered that because i thought i would like to make something i can use and they looked quite straight forward (that's put the kiss of death on it ).  Anyway my £500 pound budget seems totally inadequate for what i want so some scrimping and saving is the order of the day.

Its good to see i have some local lads for support, hi picclock checked out the anodising on utube and that looks like a good idea and hi miner thanks for the advise on the long bed and the larger type lathe i was considering a small one but i see where you are coming from.
Hi hopefuldave thanks i can see me calling when i get the three phase problem


Thanks to all Mike