Do you have big compressor? You're going to want a variety of die grinders. Quick lock discs and sanding rolls are great. Ever better when you polish the piece on a wheel with compound.

Mark - where are you in Pennsyltucky? I am near Gettysburg and would be happy to have you over to talk shop in my shop. My machines include a Bridgeport and Southbend lathe.

If you want to send a private message my email is in my profile.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris42:
Mark - where are you in Pennsyltucky? I am near Gettysburg and would be happy to have you over to talk shop in my shop. My machines include a Bridgeport and Southbend lathe.

If you want to send a private message my email is in my profile.

Unfortunately, I'm in New Castle. About 250 west of you. I do appreciate the invite.

I think you should look for a high pressure water cutter, a forging machine, or possibly a laser cutter. Oh so many tools fun spending other people money...metal smithing is fun.

More or less on topic...

I got involved in a project that required a part too big to do on my little benchtop lathe.

I have an old Volunteer Fire Department buddy that I know has a full-sized lathe, so I paid him a visit thinking to rent a little lathe time from him.

He was more than willing to let me use his lathe, but he made me an offer I couldn't refuse:



Someone gave him this old Seneca Falls lathe. Really old. Like >100 years old, from an old overhead line shaft shop. It's been converted to 110v motor drive. They'd been using it as a wood lathe but had most of the original parts for it.

I've been getting it back into shape for use as a metal lathe. I've actually turned a couple of parts on it.

The spindle is tight but the chuck has about 30 thousandths worth of wobble in it out at the end of the jaws so I've got to figure out how to fix that, and the saddle and cross-slide need a tune up pretty badly.

I also need to upgrade the old "lantern style" tool post to at least a turret style to get some decent rigidity in the setup. The stuff is out there, some new, some via E-Bay, but the budget isn't up to it right now.

Once I get a couple of projects under my belt, I'd like to get something larger but I'll probably look for a cheap busted mill to mess with next.