I've gone kind of shop-crazy this winter

  

Just a few of the projects:

Lathe-related

·         Shim or re-fit all lathe control handles. They were sloppy.

·         Cross slide lock (homemade). Required for facing. Or you can keep one hand on the main crank.

·         New cross slide hand wheel (homemade). The original was too small and did not have a bearing.

·         Tailstock lapped to ways. Bad alignment.

·         Center finding gauge (homemade).

·         Compact depth gauge (homemade).

·         Bump center (homemade). It’s a thing made from ball bearings to help align work in chuck.

·         Milling 90 degree plate (homemade) that bolts direct to compound.  Also hold-down bars and studs.

·         Milling 90 degree plate that fits vertical slide (below) (homemade).  Additional hold-down bars and studs. Toe clamps from 2-inch schd 40 pipe (homemade).

·         Marking/bolting 90 degree plate (homemade).

·         Vertical slide.

·         Vice for vertical slide.

·         Fitted milling vice. Handle needed re-machined. Mounting holes.

·         Keyway mod in lathe tailstock. Stock keyway was omitted at factory due to casting error.

·         Mods to drill press milling vice.

o   Handles and gibs.

o   Wider jaws with 6 screws and pressure plate (homemade).

·         Three machinist’s jacks (homemade), mostly for use with the drill press and lathe.

·         Built shallow drawer under work bench for mics etc.

·         Built drawer under lathe (right side, for lathe accessories), with lift-out tray. More trays lower.

·         Built drawer under lathe (left side), for milling accessories) with lift-out tray. More trays lower.

·         Several other drawers to organize drills and boat fittings.

·         Organizer behind chip guard.

·         Ways cover (attached with aluminum strip embedded with rare earth magnets).

·         Shallow, removable chip tray under chuck-half.

·         Face plates (2). Fitted from older lathe.

·         Hand turning rest (wood or metal) for metal lathe (homemade).

·         Hand turning chisels for metal lathe (2) (homemade) .

·         Chuck spider (homemade) (accessory to chuck short stuff).

·         Parting tool holder using hacksaw blades (homemade). Very good for brass, not steel. Got 1.5 mm parting tool from Buyaholic.

·         Manual die holders (1.5- and 2-inch) (homemade). Not lathe mounted, but can start 1-, 1.5-, and 2-inch on lathe using chuck to keep it straight. Removable handles.

·         Die pusher with aligning fit (homemade).

·         Tap follower. From great uncle.

·         Die grinder tool rest mount (homemade). Includes short hose extension and air control valve.

·         Drip coolant at tool post. Mounts with magnet. Probably over kill. (Also a bad idea—can’t see what you are doing, mess in mechanism, corrosion. Better with a spray bottle or squeeze bottle.)

·         Indexing for lathe head (homemade) (24 increments). Great for making hex and square heads.

·         Precision filing guide (homemade). Can be used for end stop or depth control.

·         Larger dog for turning between centers (homemade). (I still have my old 1975 small home-made dog!)

·         Assorted custom handles for hex sockets and square drives (homemade) (chuck and tool rest).

·         Radius turning attachment. 0.625” to 1.5” (homemade). For wide pulleys, such as trailer rollers, genoa leads, and low friction rings. A precision job, requiring milling, turning, threading, and indexed grinding. But not much bigger than my thumb.

Other projects (all homemade using lathe, welder, band saw, drill press, etc.)

·         Bending lever, large stock. Up to ½-inch rebar.

·         Bending rod jig for vice, small stock. Bar stock and up to about 3/8-inch round … maybe.

·         Band saw table and stand. Fence from speed square. Sled from scrap.

·         Improved hold-down tee-nuts for drill press.

·         Tuned up cross slide vice for drill press. Now I can mill on the press, up to ½-inch steel plate with ½-inch end mill.

·         Centers (top and bottom) for drill press table. Good for accurate concentric drilling.

·         Wooden clamp to hold work from spinning.

·         Steel fence for drill press.

·         Drill press clamp (Keats Plate) for round stock center drilling.

·         Drum sander table.

·         Tool handles. Lots, mostly for files.

·         9-inch disk sander stand. 90 degree fence.

·         Cradle for angle grinder (just for spin-down). I’m going to upgrade this to 12-inch when I run out of 12-inch paper.

·         Scribe/awl from triangular file. Full length tang. Very hard.

·         Light bracket for drill press. Old eyes appreciate this.

·         Switched outlets to control air compressor and shop air filter.

·         HEPA-rated show air filter from 5 MERV 13 20x20 filters and a 20x20 box fan. Allows welding indoors. Every shop should have one. Also great for remodeling mess.

·         Soft jaws with magnets (both vices) . Aluminum and wood.

·         Parallels with magnets. Parallel edge clamps for non-magnetic parallels.

·         V-blocks. Many sizes. Wood, steel, and aluminum.

·         Table saw sled and mini-rip fence. More accurate and less dust.

·         Zero clearance insert for table saw. Less dust.

·         Two hole deburing tools; one from a counter sink and the other from a ½-drill with the clearance angle reduced (plus handles).

·         Edge deburing tool from a rusted triangular file plus a handle. My favorite.

·         Up-side-down holders for 5-minute and G-Flex epoxy.

·         Cradle for angle grinder (for spin-down).

·         90 degree and variable angle brace/clamp for welding

·         Mini-chipping hammer from rebar. My new favorite.

 

And I'm sure there were more. And I'm reaping the benefits, as I now have just the tool or jig I need to do things more quickly and with better precision. More practice helps too. 

The cost? Barely anything, since most were homemade. With welding, milling, and a lathe, you can make most things.

Trump is "Pissed Off" that Putin did not honor a cease fire.

 Well .... Obviously.

Trump is actually smarter than that. I think. I hope. So the question is, why does he say things, make statements, and take actions (birth right citizen ship comes to mind) that he knows are false and won't stand or work out? Sending a message to his constituency? But is it worth the collateral damamge, even from his perspective, given that he is already elected? Does he believe it will help in the mid-terms? Such actions puzzle me. I can only guess this is descended from a pattern of business and personal behavior that has worked for him through the years. Sad. The Presidency is different.

Or perhaps it is just that arrogance can be a real stupid-a-fier. It has been for me over the years.

Is The World Order Changing?

 Half the people voted for Trump. If you did, is this the world you foresaw?

• He wants to be King. They could have guessed that. They should have known he only cares about one man and one man's view. Obviously. But others share parts of the view. But do you share all of it, because you no longer have a say.
  
• He wants to add territory so that he can be remembered as a conquering hero. Of course, if you read history books, those empires didn't last and the conqueror was usually killed.  Alexander the Great is remembered as a destructive despot that left a mess for others to clean up, not as a good man that moved the world forward. Just sayin'.
• He believes that the super powers (US, Russia, and China) will and should divvy up the world.
• NATO will be irrelevant. Treaties will not be respected. He does not respect them.
• As the Northwest Passage becomes more important, Greenland and Canada become vulnerable to aggression. Russia will not respect NATO. Well, of course not, if the US withdraws. And then he will argue that Canada and Greenland can only be safe if they become part of the US, which Russia would not attack dirrectly. Twisted logic for certain. In fact, NATO with Europe and the US has more than twice the money to ward off assault than the US on it's own. We certainly do not have enough money to handle China and Russia. We need help. The west is stronger as one voice. The Ukraine has been a good wake up call for Europe, but Trump heard only the message he wanted to hear, the one that could make him king.
  

• And he believes, following the Russian model, that out economy would be better off on its own.  That's just stupid and will lower our standard of living. I suspect he believe the US oligarchs will be better off. Why else would Musk be there? Obviously? There cannot be another reason. It's not government efficiency, it's privatization. Anyone who thinks isolationism and tariffs solve competitiveness problems is hopelessly closed minded; if you feel your are falling behind, dig in and get going. Figure out where your strengths lie and play to that. One of our strengths, over Russia and China, has been trust. It's hard to accomplish anything great without trust. I guess we're blowing that. 

 

I hope we can earn back the trust, as a beacon of light and a country you can safely do business with. But that will likely take 50 years. No kidding. 50 years. We still look at Russia and Germany a certain way. 50 years at least.

Note that I have skipped human rights and climate change. That's important too. But you can see the hot mess we're creating without the home front issues.

I think the above is the product of a very short time view and a egocentric mind, but I also think that the dementia is catching. The exact opposite "making America great," he is weakening the country. Instead of the leader of the greatest non-imperial empire the world has ever seen, we will soon be isolated. The accomplishments of WWII, paid in blood, and the many leaders that followed, are being washed away by a flood of blind ego. Many great Republican presidents are weeping.

We can fix this, a least some of it, in the mid-terms.

Have a Portable Band Saw? Make a Table.

 I should have done this 20 years ago. 

I was surfing the net on a business trip and came across a super simple table for a portable band saw that I could make from a scrap under my porch. The scrap even had the bends I needed. To use it, you clamp the edge in a large machinists vice. Unfortunately, although many people manufacture these and variations, my saw was too old to be supported. DIY time.

 First, I made a very slightly larger rest for the band saw. I had realized that if I just clamp the band saw in the vice (soft jaws) a slightly larger rest would allow some delicate part trimming without mounting the table. That could be handy. Also, it would give me something to screw the larger table to. The screws holding the original rest came loose chronically, and I wanted to take this opportunity to lock them down tight and use red Locktite. I knew that using them repeatedly to mount a table would eventually result in stripping ( I could re-tap them larger, but it would be tricky to drill the hole without complete disassembly of the saw).

I then took a sheet of heavy cardboard and did a few quick mock-ups.  Simple. Clamp the band saw in the vice to do the trimming of the table. Four 1/4-20 flat heads tapped into the new rest hold it down. A cable tie holds the power "on" and a switched outlet with switch 30 inches away provides control. (Some prefer a foot switch, but a conventional shop band saw just has a switch--I like being able to adjust my balance and stand on two distracted feet.)

I used this table, clamped in the vice (rotate the vice 90 degrees) to cut four trapezoidal backing plates out of bronze for a fellow sailor. It was like cutting paper with scissors. Also perfect control; I could keep the blade on a penciled line, neatly erasing only the line.

So I made a stand. Too often you need the vice and the band saw alternately.  There are dozens of designs on the net, made from whatever scrap is on hand to fit the saw they have. The most common threads are a fork at the top to hold/grasp the top/forward handle, and a cradle for the back and bottom. Mine was welded from lightweight 2-inch angle and 3-inch channel, but there are no-weld designs out there. You could manage with an angle grinder and drill. Keep it simple.

 The band saw just drops into the stand, no clamps or bolts required. Just gravity and a good fit. It sits stably on the workbench, but if it is in the way it is easy to pick up and move. Portable enough to take to the boat. You could use it sitting on the ground (you would need some sort of remote switch, if just a power strip).

 If you have a portable band saw, make a table and stand, or buy one if available to fit. Really.

 

 

Finished

 The barrel and hardware were phosphate conversion (Parkerized) treated. This protects against rust and also provides a more authentic color without the gloppy thickness of paint. I like still being able to see the tool marks. Cannons were lumpy.

 The carriage was made from some 100-plus year old oak I had laying around. I made square nuts for the tie bards from hex nuts. The iron bands on the wheels are 3/4-inch conduit with the galvanized etched off and Parkerized.

In principle I could fit it with  the aiming and restraint ropes, load it, and fire something. It's bored through to the touch hole about 0.27 inches, if I recall correctly. The breach also opens, because I turned the knob as a separate piece and threaded it to the main bore. The elevation wedge is functional.

 

 I wanted some lathe practice. I think I also wanted to demonstrate that a Vevor lathe can turn steel. You just have to tune it up, use small radius tools, keep them sharp, and take thin cuts. Much of the materials was removed using power feed. I suppose it is old school, but I have some Stelite bits that I really like. They hold an edge longer than HSS and can be sharper than typical carbide tips.

A Tiny Cannon

 Most machining projects have been practical. Time for something impractical.

 This started out as a rough 1-inch iron bar t6hat I found rusting under the porch when I moved in. Probably not a very good grade of steel, something from concrete work or surveying. 

 I

 About 5 inches long and slightly more than 22 caliber, which would be about 1:20 scale for a 9-pounder. Basically, I scaled it off the lump of metal I had. I'm not that particular a modeler. I really just did it for the lathe practice.

 I've read many places that the the Vevor-type  lathes won't turn steel. In fact, it's about the tuning and about the tool grinding.  Any deficiencies in finish or precision are more a result of my inpatients than machine limitations. Machine rigidity is an issue, but flex of the work itself and chucking challenges are actually more important. Most of this was turned between centers, much of it using power feed and light cuts, about 10-20 thousandths at a time. Sharp tools help.

 

 I found  number of drawings of Armstrong-pattern guns. They were common for about 150 years, through the Napoleonic wars through the Civil War, with many variations based on size and which foundry they came from.

 Now I need to build the carriage. I have some old oak, steel sheet, and black safety wire.

 I wonder. Should I leave the cannon as polished steel, or should I Parkerize it or otherwise turn it black? I think black, including the steel hardware on the carriage.

 

Parkerizing

 One of the first things I did when I got my lathe was begin sifting though stores of old machinist's tools that I had inherited, through my grandfather, from a great uncle who was a machinist at the US Navy yard in Washington DC during WWII. New torpedo designs and such things. Also some old wrenches, some I wanted to use, and some for antique and nostalgic value. Some were my other grandfather's fathers, well over 100 years old.

 After a quick wire brushing I though them in a pot of warm water/phosphoric acid product called Barnacle Buster.  I had a gallon left over from a PS project, and reasoned it would be good at loosening rust without excessive corrosion. In fact, it works very well. Most of the taps, dies, files, and wrenches looked quite good after 30-40 minutes and a light follow-up brushing. A few I left in longer, since they weren't there yet, and that is when I noticed something odd. They were turning gray.

 A little research revealed that what I was looking at was a phosphate conversion coating, related to the Parkerizing finish we are used to seeing on firearms.  Zinc is added; little doubt a few items had some zinc plating that I had not noticed. Manganese is included in the patented Parkerizing formula, as is treatment at an elevated temperature. 

Obviously enough, heat speeds the process and helps remove any traces of residual oil (hot phosphate is a strong de greaser). Concentration helps. But too much speed and the surfaces become rough (more etching) and the evolution of bubbles can lead to streaking and poor treatment of the bottom (also blinded by bubbles). 

The upper wrenches are 100-125 years old. They work fine.

The lower wrenches are nothing special, but are good grade and in fine shape after rescue from a rusty tool box. The photo does not do them justice.

 

I'm writing this up for Practical Sailor, but the short version is this: 

• The recommended concentration, which is a bout a 4:1 dilution, or about 5-7% phosphoric acid.
• Room temperature to 150F. About 120F is probably the best balance of effectiveness, evenness, and minimal etching.
•  A little zinc seems to help. The easy way is to plop an old anode in the pan for 5-10 minutes before adding the parts. More zinc creates a thicker, blacker coating, but it is more prone to rubbing off and seems to reduce durability, so minimize the zinc. 
• You can reused the dregs for many batches over months. Top up with water. Add a little acid if it seems to slow. There will be some sludge, from grease and from the old rust, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything. It settles out and you can pour off the clean liquid. A stainless pot with a lid from the thrift store is good. A hot plate in the shop is better than using the kitchen stove!
• Lightly oil. Mixing any old oil about one in four with mineral spirits gets the oil into all of the crevices, and when they drip off and dry, leaves just the right film. I dunked then in a shallow pan; I had a lot of taps and dies, plus wrenches with internal parts. For general use, I have a jar with a lid and keep a brush and a drip-off pan next to it.

It really does not add much rust protection, but the coating really helps hold oil and the parts I make (lathe , milling, welding) look better.  As for old tools, with a exception of some rusty feeler gauges that were beyond saving, even the files and taps came out sharp, little different from new (treatment for files and taps was more brief). 

The main advantage of this treatment, other than it is dead easy, is that unlike paint or galvanizing, it does not add thickness. Everything works as it did before. Pretty cool.

Mini-Lathe Tuning, Modifications, Upgrades, and Tooling

2-1-2025

2-7-2025 I revised this a week later to list some second layers stuff that isn't primary but that is hard to accomplish much without. Simpler than writing a second post and then expecting the reader to fit them together.

 Nearly a month into playing with my Vevor MX-S716G 8"x16" lathe I've learned a few things and stepped up both my skills and the machine's capabilities several notches. As I said, I had operated a home-built lathe 50 years ago, and I inherited a small assortment of machinist's tools from my great uncle (worked at the US Navy Yard during WWII), reducing the pain of buying tooling. The first cutter I tried was one I ground, under my father's watchful eye, when I was 14. 

 Why the Vevor 8x16? I could say I did some "research," but I just read reviews like you.  It seemed to meet my needs for a price I didn't mind (about $700). So far, so good.

This is a small lathe with limited power and rigidity. It will turn plastics and soft metals easily, but for steel take very light cuts. It will do it well and accurately, but you need to keep the tool pressure low. What reduces tool pressure?

• Sharp tools.
• Light cuts. If you feel resistance, maybe lighten up. Practice.
  
• Slow feed. 
• Higher RPM, because the cut is shallower for a given removal rate. Also, higher speeds can de-couple the natural frequency of the light3weight lathe from the chatter frequency, resulting in a better finish. However, the trade off is heat. Carbide can stand more, high speed steel next, carbon steel least. As a starting point, 1/2-inch aluminum and brass can run as high as 2000 rpm and steel at 1000 rpm with light cuts (you can run slower, of course, though the speed can be unstable below 400 rpm because of reduced hp and momentum. The larger the diameter, the lower the speed (you are trying to keep the surface speed constant. When facing a large part you will want to adjust the rpm as you across the face. Obviously, if the part is unbalanced, either fix the balance or slow way down and feed very slow.
  
• Very small tool tip radius. You want to be cutting a very narrow chip on steel. This also means slow feed, because you are by definition cutting  spiral, and the smaller the radius the more obvious (use a sharp point and you are cutting threads!). So feed slow.
• Lubricant. Motor oil works well. There are many cutting products. Water-based (dilutatble in most cases) products provide better cooling, but you use more to get this effect. A drip-bottle is handy, but so is a pump oil can and a small spray bottle. IT depends on how much you need and where you have to reach.
  

Set-Up. They come assembled but adjusted loose. Expect to clean everything, adjust the gibs, oil all of the ways, and grease the gears. Take your time, expecting to spend several hours on tuning.

Just the same, there were some fixes that needed tended to early on.

•  Metric tools. It comes with OK Allen wrenches (long T-handled ones are better) and crappy wrenches, but not all of the sizes you need (7 mm for the gibs lock nuts).
  
• Bolt it down. Sturdy bench. The more rigid the better.I added a plank if 1-inch marine ply to the benchtop and 3-inch backing plates on the underside. Overkill, but shake is bad.
  
• Work light. You can't have enough.
• Mount it with several feet of clearance to the left of the headstock end so you can have stuff hang out. The tailstock can be within 10 inches of an obstruction (you will slide the tailstock off ocationally). 
• Mount it close to the front edge of the bench. You don't want stuff there anyway.  Most people build a rack for stuff behind it, sometimes hanging off the chip guard on the right side. But wait until you see what works.
  
• Tailstock ways ground and filed. The casting was just bad. Even locked down it wobbled. The bed, cross slide, and compound  ways were all ground well, just the tailstock was bad. 20 minutes with a file set it right. It is helpful to have a tailstock chuck and put something long it, so you can make sure the tailstock is straight.
  
• Align the tailstock with the headstock. up/down, fore/back, and also angle. BTW, the tailstock can be adjusted to the side for turning shallow tapers (like Morse), but this feature is mostly used only for alignment.
  
• Tailstock keyway was missing, I suspect the result of casting finishing error. The tailstock chuck would spin when not locked down. The key is a thick washer with a flat side, installed down a drilled hole, and the hole was not properly drilled to allow the washer to sit flat. As a result, the installer just left it out.This was actually a little tricky, in part because it is hard to see and you've got no drawing to work from. It required the turning of a new washer, grinding the flat to fit, and finishing of the hole. But it turned out fine.
• Re-fit all the handles. They were sloppy feeling, and this can affect accuracy. Some required shimming of the axle diameter, some required washers. The compound handle was too small and the handle was not designed to pin, so I made a new one from scratch, turning the handle and using some 3/8-inch square bar for the cross piece.
• Cross slide lock. Yes, you need one. Otherwise, the cross slide can move away from the work while facing or using a boring bar. Many videos on-line.Most show milling a T-shaped block, but I just welded some 1/2 x 1 flat bar to some 1/4 x 1 1/2 flat bar and ground it to fit. Very smooth. A recessed Allen cap screw locks it. 
• Ways chip guard. An accordion-shaped bit of rubberized cloth that you can get on Amazon for $6. Attach to the headstock and cross slide with magnetic tape. Chips are not so damaging, but if you use a grinder or sand paper, the grit will cause wear.
• Polyethylene washer (or stainless/brass) under tool rest center bolt. This allows the clamp to turn more easily, resulting in less movement and easier clamping. So easy. 
• Debur tool rest center hole, top and bottom. Was causing some very minor rocking. Check for flatness too.
  

Tooling. Stuff you need. I'm going to assume standard hand tools and a grinder. A lot of other things help, like a drill press, Port-a-Band, welding machine, and well, a full shop. I will just point out the vital and lathe-specific.

• Lathe tools (chisels). A set of indexable carbide-tipped tools ($25) are good if you have never ground tools before. I had and I inherited a stack. But they are still very nice and stay sharp a long time. Their Achilles heel is that they are brittle and don't like discontinuous cutting, such as rounding square stock. High speed steel is tougher and less likely to break (I've chipped some inserts, but not HSS).
• Shims, many thickness in 1/32-inch increments. The lathe tools must be shimmed to the exact level of the lathe spindle. Even tools holders from the same kit vary. Cut from scrap, about 3/32 wider than the slot so they are easier to position. I like aluminum and brass to protect the tool rest.
  
• Blank tool stock. The easiest way to turn a pulley (you're a sailor?) is to grind a tool to the profile of the groove. I have one specific to 1/4-inch Amsteel, of course. I'm sure I will make more.
  
• Tailstock chuck. You can't drill without one. $25.
• Center drills. Because they are short they are just better at starting a centered hole than a regular drill. And for centers, of course.
  
• Taps and dies to about 1/2-inch, holders, and a drill set from 1/16- to 1/2-inch by 64ths. Can be either metric or inch, since you don't need to match up. You can thread on the lathe (metric or US), but you won't want to, since changing the gears is a PITA and there is no thread dial. And many builds have need for tapped holes other places, like the cross slide handle I made. Also a center punch.
• Files. All kinds. for knocking off corners and cleaning things up. And for fixing up the lathe. A big mill file is a start, but add smaller ones and  rat tail files. Fit small handles (you can make these).
  
• Drill guide. I already had this, but get one. By far the handiest way to drill 90 degree holes in shafts for set screws, a very common task. Not technically a lather tool, but used in conjunction.
  
• Deburing tools. I have a 1916 scraper, plus a 3-edge scraper I made from a rusty triangular file and two more for holes made from a broken drill and an old counter bore. Something.
  
• Soft blow hammer. Use this to set tapers in the tailstock.
  
• Center marking gauge. Some things you hold in the chuck, but many are better stabilized with a center in the tailstock.  The old school 90 degree T-type works fine (you can make this).
  
• Measuring tools. A digital caliper is the workhorse, but you'll add more. A separate, compact depth gauge is very handy. Make it from 5 inches of 1/8-inch steel 1-inch of rod, 1/2-inch brass rod, and a small thumb screw tapped in the side.
  
• Scribe. A pencil is not good enough. For better visibility, cover it with Sharpie and then scratch through that.
• Bump center. This is an alignment tool. It took me a few weeks to figure out that I needed one, and boy can it be handy. Make you own with 1/2-inch square bar and some in-line skate bearings.
• Face plates. 
• Chuck spider (for chucking short things--Google it). I welded up my own from 1/4-inch stock and ground/filed it flat. Get the simplest one you can, with legs no more than about 0.35-inch wide (to chuck 1/2-inch work). Plastic is OK, the load is not the great. 
• Thin aluminum jaw guards. For protection soft items. Today I turned a tiny brass lamp finial adapter, just 3/8-inch long. I used the spider, plus a nut and washer to locate the surface just above the jaws.
  

Milling. And then there is the milling stuff. Yup, it will do light duty milling on brass and aluminum, but I expect it to struggle with steel. It is also no substitute for a separate drill press. Tip: set your gibs tighter than you would for turning and take light cuts. Lots of lube, and don't hurry.

The cross slide on mine is about 0.006-inch out of 90 degrees to the headstock. You won't notice it turning, but you will when feeding across the bed. You can compensate by placing a  thin spacer behind the work, once you know the angle.

• Milling 90 degree plate. You can buy this for $50 or you can make one--I welded one up and then ground it flat. Lots of holes on a grid. I tapped mine so that I can just use studs and drilled bars. It bolts in place of the tool rest.
• More shims. Mostly aluminum or brass to protect the work.
  
• Marking/bolting 90 degree plates and squares. Can be bought or made from angle iron and filed square.
• Assorted small clamps. Get them as you need them. Used with the 90 degree milling plate.
  
• Milling vice. Get the simplest one you can, with vertical travel. Simpler means more rigid. Bolts onto the cross slide. Like the lathe, mine required some rework (handle, gibs, and mounting bolts, spacers and bushings [that's what a lathe is for!]). $50
• End mills (a set). I'll probably get a slitting saw (turn the arbor?) and some woodruff-style cutters soon.  Maybe a round end mill set. I need to see what projects I have. 
• Files. Machinists were making accurate parts with files long before milling machines were invented. vital for final touches that make the difference between OKish or poor, and very good.
  
• Small V-blocks. Very handy for drilling or milling small shafts. I made a 1/2-inch x 2.5-inch block from 1/2-inch rod (flat on the back side) and will make more.I doubt the standard sizes would be of much use.
  

Hand Turning. Wood can be turned, of course (I have a wood lathe, but a small lathe has advantages too). Metal can also be turned, with small chisel and care.

• Tool rest. You can use a piece of 1/2-inch square stock in the tool holder, but it is limited. I welded up a nice stiff one from 1/2x1 strip and 1/4x1 1/2 strip about 6 inches long that bolts in place of the tool holder. 
• Hand tools. Some folks use graver's chisels. I made adapters that pressed into 1/2-inch ID tubing that hold 1/4x1/4 lathe bits with 2 set screws. The tips are ground differently from standard bits, typically like a V-wood turning tool, but with less rake. Then I slipped wood handles over the end of the tubing, making them close to the length of a wood turning chisel, because that is what I am used to. Mostly handy for turning rounded ends.
• Expect to use it for wood as well. Tool handles, for example. You can do it free hand or using the slides for precise work (fitting handle ferules, for example).  

Tool Storage. There are a lot of bits and pieces. I have a tray on the chip guard for keys, Allen wrenches, and scribes. Trays to my right hold lathe bits, center drills, jigs for holding pulleys and similar, face plates, and shims for lathe bits. Another tray holds all of the milling stuff. A shallow drawer to one side holds measuring and layout tools. A rack on the back of the chip guard holds commonly used items, such as keys, Allen wrenches, scribe, depth gauge, and dead center. Lubes are on the table to the left. A chip brush lives on the chip tray to towards the tailstock

Scraps. You will need lots and lots of aluminum, brass, plastic, and wood scrap. Rods, tubing, and plates. Hole saws are darn handy for turning thick plates into thinnish round blanks for pulleys and the like.

If I added  up the cost of all the tooling I'm pretty sure it is more than the lathe, but I had a lot of it and made a lot of it. I've only spent ~ $75, but that's a cheat number.

Mini-Lathe

rev. 1-12-2025, rev. 1-17-2025

I'm kind of a shop junky. I use my tools a lot, but yes, by normal standards I'm not the average credit card sailor.

I built a metal lathe in junior high school from washing machine parts, a few things I cast, and a few things from the hardware store. It vaguely resembled a Uni-mat, and it turned out some bicycle and skateboard parts. A few things for work. However, it was non-standard and wore out 30 years ago. I've been wanting to replace it, but they're expensive. I learned a lot of good drill press and hole saw hacks to get around it when making the odd bushing. But I just wanted one, and now I'm retired, basically, so why not?

 

I settled on an 8x16 lathe from Vevor. The reviews were mixed, some saying that it could do some good work after some adjustments, tuning, and slight modifications. Others said it was a boat anchor that couldn't do shit. After about four hours of adjusting, tweaking, tiny changes, and testing, I'm firmly in camp one. I think it is going to be just swell.

 

 

 Normally I hate unboxing photos. So typical of You Tube. But hauling it around to the basement entrance in the snow and then opening the plywood crate really reminded me of the "special award" scene in "A Christmas Story." I kept saying in my head "Careful! It's fragilee."

 

They ship them loosely assembled. If you can't adjust and tune a lathe, you are going to be disappointed. Since I built my last one from washing machine parts, and have some practice on real machines, tuning it up was just a few hours of plesant tinkering. The only real "fix" was re-grinding the tailstock slide, which was botched at the factory, but that took only minutes and not it is tight. I added a few spacers and washers here and there, and a few shims where they were needed. Now it seems to turn plastic, aluminum, and steel to a pretty good finish and precision, with minimal fuss. Another problem some people have, judging from the you tube videos, is that they don't use cutting fluid. Well, that's just a mistake on a lathe or mill unless you are working plastic. Technically, you don't need it, but you get a better finish and precision with it. I use a water/oil emulsion type by Anchor Lubes. A spray bottle is all you need. Flood systems are for mills and for CNC production environments (the flush helps move the chips to a collection point).

My Scan wall unit base is perhaps not the sturdiest, so I mounted it on a 1-inch marine ply sub-base and used backing plates inside. I weighs about 85 pounds, I think. Not too hard to pick up.

 

There is a wood lathe I use on the bench to the left, (hanging on the wall in storage at the moment), so I have a handy switched outlet (curiously, the wood lath does not have a switch).

 

 I got a set of carbide insert tools to go with it. They seem good, with enough shapes for most things. Several boring bars and parting tool was included, as well as right and left cut tools, several radiuses, and threading tips. They work well. I have some HSS tool stock, so I can grind a few custom tools for thimbles and pulleys. I had to make a set of shims to go under the tools, of course, to get them to the correct height. Just a standard thing that perhaps some of the buyers didn't anticipate. I remember some complaining that they should have come with and they they didn't have shim stock. Whiners. 

I've heard complaints about the slide gibbs on the Vevor machines, but they were actually pretty good. Perhaps eventually I will make a new set from brass, but that's down the road. Meanwhile, they adjust up nice and snug with no wobble. A little more friction than I like, but we'll see how the bed in.

The run out on the chuck is about 0.005. I'm not going to work over it. The spindle bearings came snug with no meaningful runout. I'll have to check the lube and adjustment after a few hundred hours.

At one point I was experimenting on a stub of thick walled aluminum tubing, and it finally just folded up. It seems I had turned the wall thickness down to 0.010 inches, which was OK, but 0.005 inches was too little. But that is pretty impressive, to me. That's thin.

The cross slide angle adjustment is under the slide, which makes it slightly annoying to adjust (you have to back the slide far to the right). But it's not something you use that frequently, and once you get the gibs set right and replace the handle it spins out quickly.  

 

Which reminds me. I did have to alight the tailstock alignment. There is a mechanism, but it is clunky, and I will probably pull it apart and clean it up when I need it.

I got a set of carbide insert tools to go with it. They seem good, with enough shapes for most things. Boring bars too, which seem to work well. I have some HSS tool stock, so I can grind a few custom tools for thimbles and pulleys. I had to make a set of shims to go under the tools, to get them at the correct height. Just a standard thing that perhaps some of the buyers didn't anticipate. I remember some complaining that they should have come with and they they didn't have shim stock. Whiners.

I did some test drilling from the tailstock. No problems. I did purchase a chuck for that (Morse #2 taper).

 

I turned aluminum, steel, and plastic. All good. The surface finish kept improving as I learned what each material liked with these tools. No chattering and nice long chips, often many feet long, even with steel.

The motor and speed controls seem good. Enough power, and I didn't notice bothersome bogging down with any depth of cut that made sense. The power feed works fine. I did not play with threading yet. I'm sure I'll mostly used taps and dies. But it does come with change gears.

I've got a few small boat projects in mind. I'll knock those out after it gets warm enough to go sailing (the snow needs to melt). After that ... no idea.Did I really need this? No. Do you? Probably not. But it's a bit of fun.

---

Later, after dinner, making a quick test jig, and grinding a cutter for 1/4-inch radius grooves....

One of my first projects is to be some wheel thimbles for my shroud tensioners. The Dyneema line is secured around a pin through two sharp-edged stainless plates. Chafe has been an issue, and the small radius of the pin is a concern. I could use a conventional thimble, but it would not center the line on the pin and thimbles can cut the rope. A wheel thimble solves both problems. I hacked this out of a bit of cutting board, so it is crude, but it proved the jig and the groove cutter. The cutter, BTW, was one I ground when I was 13, a full 50 years ago. It was still razor sharp and just right. I think it was originally for a bearing groove.

The grooves are intentionally deeper than a pulley, to keep the rope in place and to protect from chafe. The width is wrong--this was just a quick test. This is probably the correct width for the pin on the boat, but I need to measure.

It's working! It was so easy. I could make 10 of these in 30 minutes, each identical. The breaking load tested to be 700 pounds, and the WLL is probably about 200 pounds.

The once I ended up using on the boat (shroud tensioner tackle) are a little larger and have a WLL of about 250 pounds. Since the maximum load on this tackle is about 200 pounds, plastic works.  But for any high load application, I would use aluminum, which should match the WLL of the Dyneema.

 

 A metal lathe makes these easy, but you could make them with a drill press and a few files, or with a drill press-to-lathe conversion kit. The trick is to make a chisel that matches the groove bottom curve.

 

 

 

The final product:

• Centers the load (rope) on the pin.
• Protects the rope from both side chafe and pin chafe.
• Increases the pin radius. The D/d is increased from 1:1 to 3:1.

Much better than a thimble. Why there is no US distribution I can't guess. They are available for very heavy lifting applications.