Live in uk, looking at basic materials including two set of bearings, chuck, and already I'm well on my way to around £1000 haven't even factor in motor and electrics yet amongst other things, it's not worth the cost already, seeing some hobby machines for less than that the now even with loads of tooling
The lathe is one tool that can actually be used to build itself and you are doing a great job. The head-stock spindle could be a piece of DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing which would give you a through-bore to accept long pieces through the head stock. A common size of spindle nose thread is 2-1/4 X 8 tpi. If you would get a short piece of 2-1/4 DOM heavy wall tubing, and fit it up with tapered roller bearings you could eliminate that chatter. Regular pillow block bearings are not suitable for axial loading.
Great job man. I watched the whole lathe series and I'm impressed with the work. Don't worry about surface finish now. You still have to dial it in and learn how to use your cutters. Carbide likes fast and deep at a constant rate, stick with HSS until you wire up some sort of auto feed. Lube helps too, don't forget that aluminum doesn't like steel cutting fluid. Again, awesome project. I can't wait for the improvements.
Here is a young fellow, who is brave enough to share his learning experiences full of shortcomings, cleverness, and the wonderful chances taking of youth, with the more experienced, knowledgeable, and of course ignorant among us. Now how can that be a bad thing?
You're still getting a lot of 'flex' through the tool holder & saddle assembly ! REMEDY : LOCK the cross feed when turning . . . & Lock down the saddle when FACING ! Without tightening the 'slop' , you will continue to have CHATTER ! Another thing you need to address , is facing the back side of your chuck adapter. . . it is still very much 'non precision ! Remember that a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link - the SAME holds true with precision . . . RU-vid has considerable material , sadly; there are a lot of 'wannabe' machinists that are putting out 'not so accurate' information * which leads to not so accurate results ! ** I would suggest that you do a proper alignment of the bed & saddle , build a good tailstock, then bore your spindle to accept a Morse 3 or 4 taper - ( That would give you a perfect 'center ' to begin to base precision upon. ) When you build a tailstock, you can 'snug up' the gib , then bore it with the headstock , which should be as ''perfect'' as the straightness of your bed - *** If your bed isn't straight and 'true' , nothing will be able to be aligned ! ( Try using high speed steel cutters, & LEARN the right angles to grind relief . . . the 'cuts' I've seen this machine make , are more like 'rubbing' than good clean cuts . . . cast iron can leave a very nice finish , if the cutting tool is nice & sharp, with a small radius ground into the cutting geometry . . . try using the correct tool - * I noticed that you were using an 'AR' carbide bit, that was canted at an odd angle , & you were turning AGAINST the designed geometry of the cutter ! ) I wish I could give you an instant solution , but you will have to learn by doing, if you can't get some good instruction ! If you have access to a precision square, it would be helpful to find some errors . . . You CAN use your indicator to see how much runout the lathe 'bed' has . . . merely 'looking' flat, or straight , & BEING straight & FLAT are two entirely different things ! I wish I had access to some of the steel bargains you do ! Good luck with the refinements . . . you definitely have the parts . . . now just work out the imperfections !
Another suggestion for bearings would be oil-impregnated bronze sleeve-bushings. South Bend lathes have been well-known for many years for their smooth no-chatter finish. They were very solidly built machines and used ordinary wet bronze sleeve (i.e. friction-type) bearings. Make some housings for the sleeve-bushings complete with oil lines, end seals, and you would end up with a very nice st-up. Make your sleeve bearings nice and long, e.g. ~3'' or so. As one commenter mentioned your chatter is coming form many places, so simply eliminate them one at a time.
I appreciate and thank all those who have given a push up which builds up scientists and I really thank you for your wonderful video that has helped many to build a lathe machine
Wow! Beautiful! Facing off the back plate before mounting the chuck was a great idea! That last bit of chatter might be reduced if you turn the cutting tool upside down and cut from behind the workpiece. I've heard some old timers suggest that for a floppy tool post.
Getting 'er done. I need new bearings for my homemade lathe head stock. I sure wish I could find some like you did in a scrap yard here. If you wallow those mounting holes out some more on that face plate you can true that chuck up some more. I would.
this is so awsome man, dont stop this project. its amazing. so worth it. the knolage u get from a project u get from this is gonna follow u all ur life. its amazing how much understanding u get from doing somthing like this.
I think your doing a great job on the lathe. How many can say they built their lathe out of scrap parts. As far as the run out. It's not going to be precise. I'm surprised it's only 5 thou out. It's acceptable for what it is. Home built.
watch "machining a backplate " videos! that will show you how to mount the chuck. You needed to machine a step in the plate that fits the recess in the back of the chuck.
keep at it ,but accuracy is the key mate .Lap your surfaces and tighten up the slop with some adjustable phosphor bronze or brass bushes then true it up ,you will bring it down to a thou or better if you use tapered bearings . A hollow spindle is a must .You will learn so much as you go along and improve it ,the first is always learning curve .Go for it !
It's great to see a young man tackling such an ambitious project. I would suggest that you re-turn the face on your spindle flange, and add a boss on it to match the recess in the back of your chuck. That way the chuck would always be centered.
a tubular head stock shaft would allow for longer work to be chucked with part of it inside the head stock shaft which would increase versatility...just a thought...I always wanted to build my own lathe...I never got it done so you are way ahead of me in that respect...also the material from which the lathe is made will affect the chatter since steel is a springy material which enhances chatter...this is why commercially made machines are made mostly of cast iron which is a dead material that does not ring like a bell....but don't let the neigh sayers discourage you... you HAVE a functioning machine..never mind the precision...you are shaping round metal parts for welding together...most folks don't get anywhere near that far...so take it from an old machinist with years of experience...you are doin' pretty darn well...keep goin'..... improve the next one
I know this is far too late but there's a really easy way to ensure the face of the lathe and the cutter are totally parallel. Just use the lathe to face the face plate you mount the head stock to. Using the set up as you'll use it ensures that it'll be 100% straight.
you have an inset on the back of the chuck that you need to use to register the chuck. If you turn a step on your new backplate to just fit this register ring you can get a better fit.
Well done lad! If you can, try to get the runout in your Chuck to two thou or less. Try varying your spindle speed and feed rates (higher spindle with slower feed). If you can dial those two things in a bit more you are going to be near or at production lathe outcomes. Keep up the great work!!
Great efforts! bolting the i-beam down to your heaviest bench might help reduce chatter a little. I wonder if milling the top surface flat and sides (tracks? for the carriage) would also help, however is against your style of using minimal tooling which is impressive!
Hi, 1 - Put a gearbox (from a little motorbike) between the motor and the axle, to mix torque and speed (i already put this here "in a galaxy far far away" .... on the first video). 2 - Look in the beginning of video (4:50) how the chips dancing in the paper, this lathe dance a lot, look the screws that fix the tool.... :-) To improve the cutting tool stability, you need fix this lath in a heavy place like a table with a heavy concrete top. 3 - You need gain weight, this lathe is very skinny, big weight create a lot of inertia against the vibrations.
Im a plant millwright that deals with a bearing similar if not the same as those you installed. Those bearings are very similar to the ones on our boiler blower out at the plant. Look the bearing up and do some research. If it is the type of bearing like the ones out here then the more you tighten that shim bushing in the tighter your clearance will be between the bearings and races. There is a set up procedure for them if they are those type and your local bearing house should be able to provide literature on them if they are. I cant make out for sure in the video. If not contact me (Frankmiii79@gmail.com) and ill get you a place that will. This tuning will definitely affect your run out and cut quality. They sound wore out or loose. Hope that helps. If i put this in a place that he cant see it can you please forward this to him. Thanks
Nice build, I have some questions/comment I hope you will find constructive. How careful were you in aligning the bearings? I didn't see you apply any pre-load to the bearings. Do they require any? If they do, that could be a source of some chatter. If you look at the surface of the last cut you took, you can see a wavyness to the cut which is an indication of chatter/vibration.
I agree strongly with the tapered roller bearing POV, ball bearings need play to allow room for grease film and the effect of the interference fit on the shaft and in the hub. Small, new trailer hubs run about $15 , but 6000 pounders are over $100. Light weight hub may have dia. too small for adequate shaft size. Big trailer or truck hub may be available at salvage. You could also have a hub at each end and just use one bearing per hub. Since you get (did that change?) chatter on axial cuts but little on radial cuts that would indicate radial play. SKF and Timken bearings may have dimensional tables for their bearings. Euros have a universal numbering system on each race and the box 20 years ago. German car repair shop (non-dealer) may be of some help through their supplier. You could check for radial and axial play with a dial indicator. An axial preload on the ball bearing could be a way to isolate the problem. Balls generally have point contact, where rollers linear contact other than the amount the race and ball deflect from load. If you load bearings too much they run hot. Easy to load brgs way more than the weight of vehicle by overtightening - Shearing forces on the lube, I read. www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200369645_200369645. Hubs come with high tensile lugs and bolts and seals, stub axles and hardware too. Check temps after run in too.
Man this is a really satisfying build...watching all that heavy metal getting welded is awesome! Also best quote from a machinist in 2017 "Feel that it looked...okay"
I would have put the motor from the scroll saw onto the lathe aswell, with different gearing onto the main shaft, and then turned the scroll saw horizontal, welded it to the cross slide and then attached another motor to the scroll saw and pointed the scroll saw blade right at the chuck so the blade jabs in and out onto the workpiece as you spin it around at the highest possible speed. Also, i would grab your grinder horizontal mill and have that motorised and just scraping backwards and forwards onto the scroll saw arm as the whole thing is going. That's what i would do anyway.
What would be a good addition is a counter weight like what they have on a old Mc tractor. Like you add a big weight to the end of the pulley when it get going and you start cutting the centrifugal force keeps it spinning!
If you replace the compound you could probably sell the old one on ebay to help finance the lathe. Also consider a Gibraltar style tool post. Basically instead of a compound you just have one really big tool holder. As long as you don't need to cut a taper it makes it more rigid.
Impressive work ethic..I used to spend countless hours doing this kind of stuff. When you can buy that metal stuff so cheap, it makes some sense. But honestly I can buy a very old ancient lathe that needs a new motor or a few things really cheap, and then just fix it, faster and cheaper. That said, enjoy seeing someone do the hard work, instead of me doing it... lol
One reason for your chatter problem is the characteristics of a steel I beam. While they resist bending, an I beam can twist. With the single web in the center supporting your ways the top flange can flex up and down a few thousandths with even a small cut. One solution would be to make a bunch of pieces of quarter inch or thicker steel long enough to fit between the bottom and top flanges and narrow enough to avoid interfering with saddle movement. Weld them into the back side of the I beam every 8 inches or so. You can do that without messing with your feed rack and it should stiffen the upper flange somewhat. I don't know if it will solve the problem but it should reduce it a lot.
It is still an ingenious design. A good piece of machinery for a student to come up with. A real learning experience. I can't wait to see what you accomplish when you get out of school and into the working world. Somebody is going to get a really skilled worker.
Hi Lawrence, your suggestion is very good. It will stiffen the whole structure without requiring him to modify the carriage. It's a good start to improve his results.
I think your main problem with the chatter is that you need a roller with a spring to tighten up the belt. When you are cutting you can see that the belt is flopping around and the head is slowing down and speeding up when you ease up on your cutting. I can not beleave no one has said anything about the belt being loose.
This is a decent attempt at a lathe. While it works well enough for quick and dirty work it still needs a lot of work to operate smoothly and with precision. But tons of people have said that. The only suggestion I want to add is you might want to wear a face mask when working with an angle grinder. The cut off wheels can and will explode and when they do anything in its path is destroyed. A pair of working eyes are no good to a dead man. Second suggestion is to put a file handle on your files especially when using them on a piece you are turning on a lathe. If you are pulling the tang out of your wrist one day you'll understand why I said that. The series of holes and then cutting the circle out is generally a decent way of cutting a hole. However there are fly-cutters made to use in a drill or drill press and produce a cleaner hole and are very nice because they are adjustable to size. You will want the cutter with the drill bit in the end of the center piece. Pretty cool video dude. Although the lathe needs work I still think it is awesome and you did a decent job. Most folks complaining are acting as if you are selling these things and honestly if a commercial built lathe like H/F sells comes stock with headstock wobble then I think a minimal amount of wobble for a homemade lathe is acceptable. People get mad when they realize that they spent 15000 bucks and a lot of time to learn to operate a lathe and then you come along and spend 15 bucks and get a very acceptable result. I have seen some people turn things on a lathe that came out a lot shittier than yours. The only thing I see you could do to better the machine is to figure out a method for balancing everything that rotates, build a pulley system similar to what you see in the top of a drill press which will let you adjust the power to torque ratio as you need. Since it is a belt drive it is easier for you to build something like that and using a roller bearing on your tensioner for the belt will make the belt run smoothly and quieter. Unfortunately, unless you move to a gear system you will always get a little vibration due to the belt system but as long as that vibration is not transferring to your headstock and causing issues with your work piece then you should be fine with a belt system. Your doing a good job keep it up.
I'm cirtainly no expert... But I would think the best way to install a Chuck backplate in this situation would be to use the Chuck itself. Set up the new spindle, then put your back plate over it. Put the Chuck on but let the spindle stick through and clamp on it with the jaws. Then you can line up and weld the new backplate and cut off and true up the bar sticking off the Chuck side. In theory that would ensure that the spindle is running true. Better than a square and a tape measure anyway 😉. I really love your videos. There is something truly beautiful about making a working machine tool from scrap metal, even if it's not "precision", it's still cool as hell. Don't listen to any of the ney-sayers. Just do you 👍
You need high precision Tapered ROLLER bearings with an adjustment for preload- for the headstock! This is where most of your chatter is originating from, you can see it in the videos. Find some front wheel bearings off of an automobile, and machine some housings for them to go in. If you find 4wd front hubs, they will include hollow housings and threaded preload accommodations. STOP beating on a hardened file with hammers, unless to want to put your damn eye out! Other than that I am Impressed with your ingenuity, and in my 55 years not very many people have earned that comment. On another note, .005" is a MILE for a lathe chuck, you need to be no more than 5 tenths, .0005 MAX, you botched this chuck assembly bad!
Maybe for your adjustment plates if you use a fine Threaded Screw instead of a coarse screw and maybe also if you put some lapping Compound on there and the pieces that slide if you left them in maybe you could take all of that slack out of there also but I think it looks fantastic man I had love it I absolutely love it in the coolest thing is that you built it yourself you know you didn't buy it and someone going to say yeah you didn't build that but you got the video to prove it I think your rocks
The 1 inch shaft, with the two pillow blocks, could be used with pulley sheaves to give the lathe four speeds! It looks like the motor is in the 1500 RPM range, so you would end up with some where in the range of 300/700/1200/2100 speeds, or so... After video #12, it is what I would attempt.
Like Ramiro M said, but in a friendlier manner I would like to outline that this is "good enough" for a project and can get better in some ways to some extent: 1. If you scrape the ways you can get really good in terms of straightness, but the steel is not as thermally stable as required to bother scraping to perfection (today it's perfect, tommorow it's not...the day after that we'll see). 2. 3 phase motors run smoother, but they are a lot more expensive and hard to find and will require a VFD or a rotary converter unless you have 3 phase power at your building, and since 1 phase lathes do exist I think this is the last of your problems. 3. A true spindle must be able to accomodate axial loads. Since angular contact bearing at this size cost an arm and a leg I suggest installing a thrust bearing from a motorcycle steering stem or something between the chuck and the bearing pillow block. This way you will be able to do facing and heavier turning, but no back turning without another of these bearing on the back of the shaft, ideally preloaded (people often talk about preload like it's an easy thing but when it comes to actually preloading precision bearings we are talking about 5-10 microns tops) 4. You don't need any backlash compensation on a manual lathe, just make sure your leadscrew is made smooth enough and use a well made bronze nut (most machines shops can do a couple of them for you). This will suffice for repeatable positioning but the actual positioning accuracy is up to the leadscrew. 5. You CAN align the headstock by shimming the bearing blocks but it will be kind of a pain! You could use a fixed self adjusting bearing in the front and move the rear bearing block around with some set screws.
Axle, or maybe “shafting”. New parts, very creative, like your problem solving abilities, in my opinion, looks are important too,well done. 🔩🔧⚒🛠⚙️🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
backplate should have a proud ring on it that matches the inset on the back of the chuck. Turned in place you get a center as good as the chuck is made. It sounds like it turns better. It's also important to turn the back side of the back plate. If it's not perpendicular to the face, then it will cause the bolts to flex or want to push the chuck this way and that. The bolts are registered in squareness off the back of the plate. Hope that is not to confusing. Get a drill press in the shop. It hurt my inner engineer watching you use the electric drill. I think you are a talented person. I check your channel from time to time.
Any suggestion on how to preload the bearings? The thing that comes to my mind is something like threading 2 nuts against each other and thus creating load against the axial bearings, but threading a huge pipe isn´t really an option for me.
Typically preload is applied via a nut to two bearings, constrained on one side by a shoulder, and the nut on the other. The bearings in the video are deep groove roller bearings, and will not stand up to the side loads. Tapered roller bearings, or angular contact bearings are required.
That is correct. The bearing pair should be located close to each other to minimize interference as the temperature increases, and the spindle grows. The end of the spindle that is not supporting an external load can be a standard roller bearing configuration.
wow nice build its too bad you couldn't get a 2 inch axle with a 1 inch bore so you could turn long pieces of metal. oh is that little compartment under the head stock a spot to put tools and stuff if its not it would be really good for that.
I like your inventiveness in working around the problems you encountered and that you were able to come up with a machine that would be useful in building a successor that is better. The one thing that really bothered me is your safety practices. You are doing a lot of the things that I have always gotten after my students about and putting them out there where novices may see and mimic due to lack of knowledge just how dangerous it is. Please consider that when making your videos.
The words you're looking for are torque and shaft. I say again, you could really use some cutting fluid. Also, you are very resourceful to find such a bearing with collars like that. I think that you have learned to weld before doing the finishing cut.
No ellipses, but the center of whatever he cuts will be offset from the center of the chuck making it near impossible to remove and replace something he is turning. It will be easy to dial out the 5 mil, though.
Jason Doege Hell, the runout of the chuck just has nothing in common with the runout of the workpiece! You chuck the workpiece up, turn over it, and that what you have turned is perfectly round (just like your spindlebearings, not like your damn chuck...) Why does nobody on youtube knows anything about metalworking but has to do like knowing everything....
+Markus Lex I don't know. Why does everyone assume they know the full extent of a person's knowledge based on brief comments? You can grind your three-jaw chuck to get better accuracy in the workpiece, you know. You can also build indexed workholding collets that you clamp in your three-jaw to provide repeatability. It is helpful to remove the runout from the perimeter of your chuck for faster more accurate setup. But all of that said, I can chuck up a piece of drill-rod in my 3-jaw on my 7x14 and get .001 runout without too much effort.
Excelente los vídeos, sácame de una duda, en ese torno que hizo, como puedo tornear roscas internas y externas, muchísimas gracias por su atención y espero tú respuesta pronta, por ues no tengo forma de comprar uno con controles, esto tratando de hacer el de sus tutoriales como pueda.
When you make a chuck mounting plate, the chuck itself has a registered machined surface. Turn the plate to closely engage that "step" on the chuck and you'll go a long way toward minimizing runout....
my friend you have a talent to improve, in an emergrcy thing you will swimming and reach the shore because your talent,many people have a expense lathe and if the lathe broke down they act like have the arms tied.like it,!!!!
Your compound slide also needs automatic feed. It's just about impossible to feed by hand and get a good finish and .005 run out is a lot in the machining world.
Building a machine without proper tools is difficult. Going back in Time it all started in a similar fashion and the first machine built the next and so on. Most take for granted the innovators decades ago.
Your "axle" is a spindle. The V shaped rail is called a dovetail. The metal plate for tightening the slides is called a gib. I like your use of an I beam for a bed. If I were attempting the same project I would have used an I beam.
Ordinary pipe is fairly soft and can deform in regular use. That deformity would show up where the pipe-as-spindle comes out of the head stock bearings.
I agree Jim. A piece of schedule 80 pipe can be sourced or even DOM tubing with 3/8" to even 1/2" wall thickness would be better IMO. That combined with tapered bearings gives a better setup. Also...I'd try to have the headstock final attachment to the lathe using slotted bolts. That way you can adjust it true to the bed....up down and side to side. That's how I did my mill project. In any case....When it's all said and done....The lessons learned through this build will be invaluable IMO. No such thing as a waste of time when one learns from the process.
@@keithgutshall9559 Coincidentally I'm setting up a 7x14 lathe for my son right now to make parts for our homemade lathe project. Not 5 minutes ago I mentioned the above comment I left years ago. Maybe I'll grab a lottery ticket.
You know what if you put a dial indicator on that head and rotate it real slow you know maybe you can take some of that wobble out buy shipping something or something like that man this thing sure is coming along good I really like it you should be really proud of yourself you've done a great job now you just got to iron out some of the bugs
