I was working on some projects at my stepdads welding and machine shop today, and while I work there my uncle is always teaching me stuff, he always tells me "im gonna make you the best damn hot rodder around". anyways to make a long story short I needed to make a stud that had 5/8 threads on half of it and 7/16 on the other half. and he mention today would be a good day to learn how to do that on a lathe. well ive only recently started working on a lathe and knew this would be a change of pace for me but two hours later and a run down on how to set up the machine and a dang refresher math cl*** i was able to turn out one stud I needed. I must admit for those who use a lathe for more complicated things on a daily basis I'm impressed, im ADD and have the hardest time standing there, but ill figure it out and get more patient, its amazing the thing you can do with a lathe if you take your time im proud of this little stud
Walked into a shop in Fontana, CA looking for a job one day in the seventies. The boss took me over to a La Blond and said fix this and you have a job. The set-up was an internal square thread in br***, some marine part. The tool was broken. I had to make a new cutting tool and re-catch the internal thread without s****ping the part . Took me a couple of hours. He gave me the job. Most folks have no concept of the difficulty of single pointing a thread. Which has always made me wonder .... Which came first, the lead screw/half nuts or the engine lathe? How would you make a lead screw without a lathe? Nice work bye the way. You now have a skill that you can teach someone else and use for your own satisfaction.
haha i was thinking today, how the heck did they make these machine without a lathe? im sure someone has the answer but dang it would have helped
Yup, cutting threads on a lathe takes some practice. I did tool and die work for many years, but never mastered square threads externally. If you can do internal square threads you are one good sum***** on a lathe!
That used to be the case...but now you could probably make a 5 axis CNC mill with a 5 axis CNC mill. Although it would probably be smaller.
I have cut a million miles of threads on my lathes over the years, and the one rule that my old mentor told me still hold true. " haste makes wast " JC
No I never thought of myself as being very good on a lathe, I just needed a job that day and proceeded slowly. Have seen many that were better on a lathe than me. But give me a Bridgeport and some tooling and I am comfortable, and happy.
I worked in one shop where you HAD to be able to do anything as well as everything... or you were gone. I've seen guys with supposedly 25 years of experience who didn't make their probation. I started out cutting threads on old South Bends with the crazy change gear thing, newer models were easier with the selector levers and of course the Hardinges will spoil anyone. Bob
Modern machinery started in the last years of the eighteenth century with the invention of the first practical screw cutting lathe
Imagine a guy sitting in a cave filing a lead screw into a stick with a sharp stone. The first screw cutting machine.
Bob, I thought you might be a BS artist, but since you have knowledge of the Hardinge and it's capabilities, then you are the read deal. I'm 75 and been fooling with machine tools since age 16, and made a good living for 40 yrs. once in the trade.Still have a full shop, with more to add when I can pull myself off hot rods and sport shooting long enough to restore another old machine tool. But to the OP, AVee8(?). Hang in there on that lathe and make the max. benefit of the chance to learn a trade that is getting in more demand as more of us old guys retire and nobody's coming along behind us into the trsde. All the industry and trade publications have had recent articles about it.
I hadn't cut threads on a lathe since metal shop in high school in 1960 and I had never cut a left hand thread. I had to make a 3/4" left hand thread for the shaft on the buffer I made. A die was rediculously expensive so I thought I would study up and cut it on the lathe. It took a couple practice tries but I finally got a decent thread and saved a bunch not having to buy a die. Lack of money and being cheap creates learning
Actually I'm not all that comfortable but plenty happy. Having missed the opportunity to get a formal education in machining I'm a hack at it. With my father pushing me for a college education (engineering school) and not the trade school I was dying to attend I missed the "love of my life" (temporarily) by not getting the proper instruction in the machine tool trade. After getting out of the GM "rat race" and back stabbing routine to get advancement I went into business for myself and opened up a auto repair shop> high performance engine building service> race car fabrication shop(which was where I belonged in the first place) and slowly picked up the skills I needed to be successful. While the lathe is my weakest skill I manage to get by and have some very good backup in friends that are perfectionists. I think this country is missing the boat by not promoting more skilled trade education and as already stated we are experiencing a shortage in some areas already and more is on the horizon. Frank
I had the same thoughts about how to make a lead screw without a lead screw back in the 60s. I found a book that explained that a cable wrapped around a shaft turned by the lathe that the lead screw was made on was used to pull the cutting tool. It was something that was used on wood lathes for years to make parts like table legs. They would slowly pull the spring loaded tool across a template to machine the piece. Somebody got the idea to use it to make a wood screw to provide a more positive feed. Wood screws wore out so somebody used the wood screw to make a mold to make a cast screw. Somebody used the cast screw to make a steel screw.
Amen to that sit! I think someone that can work with their hands will be in big demand in the future. Not everyone can sit behind a desk pushing pencils.
I cut threads on hydraulic stuff for better than 20 years and loved every minute of it, I miss it.I used to chase everyone out of my shop and hung a sign on the door, quiet time for me ,just me and the LeBlond . I did train a couple younger guys and in one session ,one of the guys tried to go a bit overboard with the compound feed and wasted the tool about halfway through the p***. He went bozo on me but we worked it out together , dressed the tool and taught him how to pickup where he left off, the only way to learn sometimes. Nowadays I read of programs written of running taps into undrilled holes, makes me shudder !!
A double amen...hopefully parents will realize it after they pay the plumber and carpenter and electrician....I went to a technical school, after a couple years at a University, My wife has BFA, I make the dough around here....and my 7 year old just wants to be like Dad, what he calls a "fixit" guy
Same here. My 11 year old has been in the shop I work in frequently and thinks its the neatest place on earth. He wants to learn machining and I personally think it's the most fun job in the world. These days I primarily do CNC work, but can and have done all manner of welding, machining and rebuilding. It's all fun and all takes skill, and my thinking is that our country needs to get back on track as far as manufacturing of all kinds. I'm nearly 50 and I don't know any guys younger than me learning the machining trade locally.
haha seems likes i found a soft spot in some of yalls hearts, thats good! These milling tools will definately keep you thinking and on your toes for a quite bit. but i feel as if the more you know, the higher demand you'll be in
-Like Engine Man noted, it's actually fairly easy. Think less "grooved rod" and more "anything with a consistent spiral". One of the old tricks was to take two lengths of heavy wire or rod, and wrap them, side by side, around a shaft. "Unscrew" one from the shaft, leaving the other behind, with a consistent spacing. Then pin, screw or solder the rod to the shaft, and you have a co**** threaded shaft. Even earlier than that, you carve yourself a round shaft, black it with the soot from a tallow candle, wrap it tightly with rope (the diameter of the rope giving the rough pitch) and then remove it. The scuff marks in the soot giving a fairly accurate- as in consistent- spiral around the shaft. Score it carefully with a knife to mark it, then very patiently carve the score lines into actual threads. Then you use that fairly rough thread to guide a more rigid tool that cuts a more consistent one- say the rough one was 3" in diameter and the part it makes is 1"- the error of the original is reduced along with the scale. Three or four generations of that, with some care and craftsmanship as you go, and you can generate a surprisingly accurate thread. Doc.
-Easy. Use a dirt-simple primitive bow lathe as posted above, to make two big dowels of whatever size and length you want. Diameter is easy to keep consistent, you simply use something like a caliper, whether it's a notch carved in a board or the real thing. (Made from wrought iron, carved from wood, whatever.) Once you have your two dowels, you make a spacer to hold that at whatever distance apart you want. Set the two dowels onto your "lathe bed"- log, stump, whatever- and put the spacer between them at one end, and nail down the dowels. (Or set them in mortar, or wax, or lash them down with rope or iron hoops, whatever.) Move the spacer to the opposite end, and then nail down the other end of the dowels. Voila`! A lathe bed consisting of two round guide rails, spaced a consistent distance apart, using nothing more sophisticated than a bow, a chunk of string, some sort of cutting tool to shave the dowels, and maybe a couple of nails. Sure, it's crude and rough, but good enough to make an improved second-generation lathe, which would in turn let you make an even better third generation lathe, and so on. Doc.
Also, don't forget the old-time method of "s****ing" ways to make them flat. That's a bit before my time, but some of the guys that worked in the shop I'm work in (about 100 yrs old) tell about having to learn this method during their apprenticeship.
I suppose that is one way to make "a" lathe, but it is hardly a copy of the original, if one has a modern machine with a cast bed and typical flat and triangular, s****ed, ways. I built a Gingery lathe some years ago. It was a fun project and it does teach you a lot of the old, lost tricks, like making your own surface plates, hand s****ing, etc. I have a factory built lathe now and am still trying to get beyond making spacers and bushings and into something a bit more challenging.
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