The Metal Lathe Gingery Pdf Converter

• The Metal Lathe Gingery Pdf Converter For Sale

I've wanted a large CNC lathe for a long time.key ingredient to that being a large lathe. Unfortunately most places that sell these lathes want a large sum of money in exchange. After some searching on the internet it turns out one could build a lathe from scratch using concrete and scraps of steel. This is the process of me building such a machine. This lathe is designed to be built in the most rustic conditions using minimal tools, however I have access to some better fabrication tools so I used them to my advantage. With the said I'm confident that if I had to build this beast with a hacksaw and a hand drill it would certainly be possible!The final result is a machine that is far more precise then I initially imagined and a great machine to upgrade into my full fledged CNC metal turning monster!It seems the Make Magazine link online was the best repository for information on this lathe but it can be hard to find.

I've downloaded the complete article (which was free online to begin with) and posted it here to make life easier. I've based my machine largely on the size and scale of these plans (my lathe shrinking in length to 42' overall). The first thing to do was cut a mold and pour the lathe's main form. The form is a simple shape that could easily be cut with a table saw, or a skill saw for that manner but as I have access to a large format CNC machine I decided to design the mold in CAD and cut all the required parts (IGES file attached).With the metal parts embedded into the concrete I installed the main bearing mount as well as the CNC cut pipe holders. Once again this is a part that was going to be simple off cuts of angle iron but access to my little CNC let me get fancy. This is the modification that will allow for continuous adjustment as the concrete slowly shrinks over time.I've also attached a rough BOM which as approximate costs of things I purchased. I had quite a bit of scrap metal and plastic on hand so I worked the design around what I had.

I started casting the lathe when the weather in the garage was still dropping below freezing the odd night. I decided to cast the concrete in the basement and then figure out how to move it after.which was silly.Moving a 500lbs of concrete up a flight of stairs is NOT easy. However people build spaceships and go to space so I figured I should be able to make this happen. After a few hours, copious use of ropes and pulleys and a few extra nicks in the walls I had the lathe up into the garage.I added some extra bracing to my work bench in the garage and once again used a combination of bricks, jacks, and car tires to eventually lift the beast up onto its new home. Now this would be a pretty poor functioning lathe if it didn't spin. In this step I took an off the shelf shaft, err.the big black thing in the picture.

I took that black thing and drilled and tapped a couple holes corresponding to the holes in the pulley. From there I could bolt everything together and have a reliable way to transmit power to the chuck.I used fancy link belt as I figured I wouldn't be able to bolt a pulley onto a shaft by eye all that accurately but it turns out that I hit the mark perfectly and the pulley runs extremely true. None the less link belt is wonderful stuff if you can tolerate the cost.The motor is nothing more then a 1/2HP furnace motor which works surprisingly well!

The pulley ratio gives me 300-400 RPM at the spindle which suits me well for the screw pitch of this machine. Once the spindle was able to run under its own power I decided to tackle the tool post. With this built I could now start using the lathe to help built itself. First I found center on the main shaft, made note of that height and milled up a solid block of aluminum to hold a tool at that height. Once again there is 1000's of ways to do this, I built it this way to suits my needs with the material and tools I had on hand.A backing plate was cut, trued up on the spindle and shaped to attach the 3 jaw chuck. I goofed slightly on this part and ended up over cutting the alignment plate for the spindle.

I will remake this part in the future from thicker aluminum plate as it seems the 1/4' is a little small for holding the chuck perfectly true (can be seen in the video while turning the brass). I am very very impressed with the results this machine has been cranking out!

I appreciate how open you are about this project. I'm looking forward to seeing the DXF's. I plan on building a machine like yours, pretty much exactly as you built yours. I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work, although I'll probably use styrofoam instead of MDF to make the form. Your build seems to have worked out so great, and I've already found suppliers for almost all the important parts. I'll build it right on the workbench where I plan on leaving it for years to come so moving won't be an issue (although I was looking forward to spending a whole day attempting to move it, just as you did). Where did you get your motor?

Can you provide the model/wattage/size/any other identifying information you can find for it? I'm trying to find one from the appliance recycling centre from a dryer or something (hopefully get it for free). I need a lathe in the next couple months or so, and this looks like the best option by far, so I'm quite excited to begin toying with the plans (I was going to try to aluminum cast a much smaller version, but this appeared out of nowhere right before I was going to get started designing the basic aluminum version I had in mind). I am open about the design because its based on an open source machine:. Just remember that if your making your forms from foam you might have an issue with pressures inside the mold, 500lbs of concrete can exert a decent amount of sideways force, I was worried about my mdf mold breaching during the final tamping.The motor I used was a cheap 1/2 HP furnace motor that I picked up from a local buy/sell site.

The Metal Lathe Gingery Pdf Converter For Sale

If your going to use the lathe for big turnings 1/2HP is a little anemic but workable with light cuts. Be sure you have room to mount the motor in both directions, or are able to reverse the direction it runs (I electrically switch the direction of rotation to suit my mounting position).Thanks for the comment!