RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Might be looking for a small lathe/milling combo . What should i look out for , as small as possible . Want to fit plastic bearings in sprocket shafts ,wheels and fitting slop free recoil etc . Going to use IGUS bushes. No issues with bearings falling apart or rusting up, have them in my bicycles .Pedals and wheels so they are quite robust .

try finding yourself a Myford Lathe, although it may take some looking. Model Engineer would be a good place to look for info and ideas

I use a Bosch Power drill in a Draper Bench Stand with a Small Chinese Milling machine bolted to the Stand and a machine vice bolted to the bed of the Milling machine all of it bolted onto the bench,
I have never noticed a real need for a lathe,
I can cut and shape most of my engineering needs with the proper tool in the Drill using the available full adjustment of the milling machine tool bed for any precision work.
For the Lathe you just have to think Vertical instead of horizontal.
By adjusting the Drill in the Bench Stand I can work long metal, wood, Plastic items with the item upright rather than on its side, Once its spinning up it make little difference when it comes to shaping the material.
E-Bay is a good source for all your needs including the vice and the drill bench stand and the milling machine.

A picture is worth a thousand words
Cheers
Wayne


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I had been searching for a lathe for a while. A couple months ago, I found a 10 x 24 inch older Logan lathe, originally sold through Montgomery Wards. I've made a couple barrels already and cut some adapter rings to fit a resin 76 turret to a Mato cast hull. Best part is I put it in my hobby room. Frankly, I had no experience with a lathe but it has been fun to learn.

midlife306 wrote:A picture is worth a thousand words
Cheers
Wayne


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Shaun bought a compound table like this.

Cross Slide Compound Working Table Bench Drill Milling Working Table Set UK | eBay
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cross-Slide- ... 0930.m5375

If you're any good at trigonometry, they are very useful for drilling a circle of holes, but sometimes you would need a dti to set it up, that's dial test indicator.

Or, a cheap way to set up your workpiece for accurate drilling, a round bar in the drill chuck, using a feeler gauge between the bar and the jobs edge to get the right positioning, then a few simple sums to get your x y datums with the spindle centre of the drill, i.e. move workpiece the same distance equal to the total of half the bar diameter+feeler gauge thickness towards the spindle centre. Then it's a case of locking the table, zeroing the dials on the table before moving the table to the required drilling positions.
Note, whichever way the dials are turned to centre the spindle to the work piece edges, either clockwise or anti clockwise, ALWAYS move your table to the drilling positions the same direction, this stops backlash (play in the screw thread) problems.
Note2, if you ever accidentally go past your measurement, turn the table dials back a turn and try again in the correct direction, never turn back to the measurement. This applies to any type of machine with a positioning dial.

No need for marking and poorly placed centre punch marks, just use a centre drill before the actual drill needed.

Hi guys.
I've just sold my old Emco unimat 4 lathe I had it for about 20 years and it was a brilliant little tool but it was not capable of cutting threads. I'm now thinking of getting a cheap lathe from China a 7x14 one. They are about £650. I've been checking out the youtube videos and I know the build quality is a bit iffy but can be put rite quite easy.

Sadly a lot of Chinese manufactured engineering tools that haven't got western influences over their quality control fall short of the mark.
I've watched a few videos that an American engineer posted after purchasing various items, although he hadn't bought a lathe from the Chinese, the items he did purchase which should have been hardened enough that one shouldn't have been able to drill a hole through using a standard HSS drill bit.
Therefore the man coined the phrase Chinesium to describe their hardened steels.
If you imagine buying a tank with steel gears (which aren't hardened) and ended up getting the pot metal ones passed off as steel, that gives you an idea of where this man is coming from.

I'm not trying to put you off your purchase, but trying to warn you to not rush into the purchase without research.

Mick.

Mick is right!
Most of the chinese Lathe are crap!
Best is, there is a local Dealer and you take a look at the Lathe.
There are a lot of Videos at youtube about chinese tools... watch them and you are able to decide which is the right for you.

jhamm wrote:Mick is right!
Most of the chinese Lathe are crap!
Best is, there is a local Dealer and you take a look at the Lathe.
There are a lot of Videos at youtube about chinese tools... watch them and you are able to decide which is the right for you.

Agreed, be very careful. There is alot around in every country, but they originate from countries with poor QC.
I have same issue buying tools for my lathe etc as many UK tooling suppliers have got into supplying chinese made tools which are like cheese!
However we only have ourselves to blame as everyone wants cheap and sometimes that means something has to give, then we price decent parts out the market ourselves