Selling my Lathe

[LoBelly]

Very Nice Mike

I have the Hare and Forbes web-site bookmarked at work and go for stroll through the isles every now and then when I having one of my shed fit out fantasies.

Just got my tax return - now all I have to do is ... RESIST >:-(

Good Luck with the Auction

LoBelly

[Aussie Mike]

Had a busy day today.

Took the trailer down to Hare and Forbes this morning and picked up my lathe. I lashed it down with a bunch of ratchet tie down straps but it was still a nervous ride home.

The 6x4 trailer coped really well. I gave it a freshen up recently. I welded on a new hitch, rewired it and built a new axle for it. I re used the rims and light truck from my tandem car trailer. I picked up some nice aloys for the tandem at a swap meet a while back. It's getting a freshen up too.

Getting it off the trailer and into the workshop was a bit of a struggle and I'm feeling it now. It's all good though and only a couple of small scratches in the paint to show for it.

Here it is installed and leveled up.



It's truely awesome to use. I can see years of fun ahead. I've never used a DRO before so it was fun to try a few cuts and work out how to drive it. You can do some cool stuff with it and I've only scratched the surface.

Cheers

[OZVENOM]

Hey Mike you are making me look bad i build cars for a living and you have better equipment in the work shop any way.
I was only thinking about a lathe upgrade a few weeks ago .
Problem is i want something a fair bit bigger 3 phase that can swing 10 inches above the bed.
Anyway mike enjoy but dont get lazy with the dro they can be very deciving.
Oz.

[Aussie Mike]

Originally Posted by OZVENOM

Hey Mike you are making me look bad i build cars for a living and you have better equipment in the work shop any way.
I was only thinking about a lathe upgrade a few weeks ago .
Problem is i want something a fair bit bigger 3 phase that can swing 10 inches above the bed.
Anyway mike enjoy but dont get lazy with the dro they can be very deciving.
Oz.

I wish I had 3 phase. I really should investigate how much it will cost to get a 3 phase feed to the workshop but I bet it'll be way too much. The extra torque you get from a 3 phase motor makes all the difference.

I was looking at all the lathes at Hare and Forbes (Kid in a candy store) and it's quite a jump in proce to go bigger. This machine has a 355mm swing where my old one was only 300mm so it's still a good step up.

One thing I found with the DRO is it doesn't take into accout the spring back in your tooling. A larger cut will have more spring back than a fine cut so the tollerance will change. You either have to keep doing the same size cuts or recheck your zero prior to the final cut. The toolpost setup on this machine is quite a bit more rigid than the old one so there spring back is much less.

Part of my rationalle for buying it is that I'll probably never buy another lathe. I'll spend my retirment turning up stuff on this thing. May as well have a good one especially when you amatise the cost over the coming years.

Cheers