Prototyping on the METAL LATHE | Turning Tuesday #12

In this video, I have a go at using the metal lathe to make a prototype for a future.... thing I will be making.... possibly?

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My name is Matt Estlea and I’m a Woodworker from Basingstoke, England. My aim is to make your woodworking less s***.

I come from 5 years of TRAINING at Rycotewood Furniture Centre in Oxford, 5 years of experience WORKING at Axminster Tools and Machinery in Basingstoke, and 3 years TEACHING both day classes and evening classes at Rycotewood Furniture Centre. All while trying to get this YouTube thing off the ground.

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[ОлегТокарев-ею]

*Excellent lathe **MyBest.Tools** I started turning pens, and this is a very smooth running lathe. I am glad that I went with a variable speed lathe. It is made of top quality materials and will probably out last me. I highly recommend.*

[didndido]

A craftsman going out of his comfort zone to gain new skills?! Thumbs up from me!

[arnonothstein]

What a coincidence! Matt and This Old Tony are my two favourite sources for Youtube crafting wisdom & fun. A collab would be darn cool 😎

[victorbarroscoch]

The lever on the side is for power feed, the other engages the half nuts for threading.

[drverman]

Made me smile, yes you have to learn. A good start is to have your tools on centre height.

[PatrikGerenmark]

That was really interesting to watch. All other metal working channels I've watched speed up the actual cutting. Fun to watch you learn the craft. I hope that there will be more of these videos. Keep up the good work!

[SkylersRants]

I love it. Thanks for trying new stuff in front of us.

[ET-cjjo]

As others have already commented, the rh side lever is for power feed and power cross feed. It uses a worm gear that surrounds and slides along the leadscrew but powered through a woodruff in a keyed slot along the leadscrew, so it doesn't use the leadscrew thread itself (and that prevents premature wear which might cause poor thread-making). The front lever engages the half nuts to the leadscrew for thread cutting, and the speed of that relative to chuck speed is adjusted by gears on the left of the lathe. It is of course quite possible to adjust the power feed by changing the speed of the leadscrew through different gear ratios, as you would for different thread pitches. Note that the SC4 has a chuck disengage (the large silvery knob on the rh bottom of the panel) to stop the chuck spinning when using the mill attachment and power feed.

[normanboyes]

If you look at the two layshafts at the front of the apron - the slow feed is provided by the feed shaft. When cutting threads the movement is provided by the leadscrew (which is normally an acme thread). Changing the gear ratios for each required thread can be challenging - depending on the lathe. However incremental change is normally by levers on the front below the headstock and range changes by mounting and dismounting gears at the free end.

[k.hussain]

Good first effort especially showing it YouTube. I'm a mechanical engineering student and we've done some lathe work and I was fortunate enough to have an instructor guiding my hand. It's all about practice. There are some tables out there on speeds and feeds that will make the calculations a little easier. Off the top of my head I can't think what they are. I'll have a look at my notes and drop you message.

[danfall]

9:23... Aghhhh! BACKLASH! Backlash is a thing Matt! Nice to see you branching out though dude =) One piece of advice: set some stops so you can't acidently powerfeed into the chuck. Can't tell you how many times that saved me as an apprentice!

[turkey]

Hi Matt,

I've taken up woodworking as a hobby recently, and been watching lots of your videos - hopefully this comment is (in some small way) going to be give something back :)

I worked on manual metalworking lathes as part of my apprenticeship about 10 years ago. Here are some pointers which you might find helpful:

1. Set the cutting tool tip directly on the spindle centre line. Start by taking very light cuts across the end of the metal bar. The tool is on centre line when you cut right across the end without leaving a 'pip'. I think a pip is visible in your video at about 11:00 and 13:20. An on-centre tool can also give a better surface finish


2. Once you've faced-off, set the dial of the lower-left black handle to zero. This will then be your reference for all Z movements. Also set the dial of the cross slide handle to zero (you've got your hand on it at 13:48)


3. Take light skims along the length of the workpiece until the surface is cleaned up. When the surface is clean all round, measure using a micrometer and set the last handle's dial appropriately. This is then your reference for X movements.


4. Take another small cut to determine whether the dial is printed in radius or diameter units. For example, aim to take off 0.1mm, take a cut, then measure with a micrometer - if the part has been made 0.2mm smaller, then your dial is probably measured on the radius, and this will need to be taken into consideration for all subsequent readings. This could be the cause of the dodgy dimension at 10:30!


Some other general information:
- You mentioned backlash. I always found that approaching dimensions from the same 'side' every time helped. If you overshoot on the dial when lining up for a cut, don't just twitch it back to the correct reading. Instead, back the handle off at least one whole revolution and try again.
- Spray some WD40 on the workpiece before each pass - this can help with surface finish.
- To reduce flex when machining longer workpieces, consider putting a dead or running centre in the tailstock.
- A bed stop and a set of ground slips can be used to make sure the saddle can be wound to a known Z position - useful for the 6mm bit of this workpiece!
- If you lose your position on one of the dials, wet some paper and stick to to the workpiece. Start up the machine and slowly move the tool into the paper until it's flicked away. Paper is about 0.1mm thick, so set the dial 0.1mm too large and it should be pretty close.

[NickWhite]

I really like the metal working videos. I am probably more into metal working that woodworking but have minimal experience. It's very interesting to see someone who is learning to get an idea of how hard some things really are. I watch all of ThisoldTony's videos but like most with experience, he makes everything look so easy and now I see that maybe it isn't that easy after all.

[davearrow]

Hi Matt to work out rpm use this formula
Stainless steel 23-40 meters per minute so 30 x 318 =9540 then divide by diameter 10mm =954 RPM
So for RMP it is MPM x 318/Dia easy👍

[MikeBramm]

Great job. We all have to start somewhere.

[Thejamie]

I am liking just for saying This Old Tony, matt and tony are just the best, please do something together

[daviddunbar]

Ok not going to give you an abject lesson on centre lathes but just a few things about names. The bit that goes from left to right on the bed is the saddle or carriage. The bit that goes from front to back is the cross slide. The small slide on the top with the tool post is, not surprisingly the top slide. To cut correct threads you will need to change the gears on the left side of the headstock( the bit with the chuck and drive controls). The two feeds for the saddle are just course and fine for finish reasons. I didn't see a thread dial indicator on the saddle but then I might have missed it, needed for cutting screw threads. Well done for branching out, more power to your elbow. Should be interesting when you hit the milling machine! Keep up the great videos.

[rascalholden]

I'm interested in anything to do with working with my hands and making things, scientific stuff and all that of it so am more than happy to watch anything you throw at us Matt. Keep up the good work mate I don't subscribe to many on you tube but you've got me in the bag dude 😎💪

[bttModeler]

I like to learn metal turning too! Have a small Proxxon lathe at home, bought it a year ago. Don't know how did I live without it 😄
Maybe you know this already, but pieces which length is more than 2-3 diameters should be supported with a tailstock. And also when changing tools you don't need to remove the previous one every time, just rotate the toolpost. Good luck, Matt!

[Ashe_Fenrir]

Very cool - excited to see all the metalworking. I'm going to try and make a mallet.