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All things machinist

TBH, I struggle with the smaller bits.

There is a bigger picture somewhere, but this is the first lathe project. I thought I wanted to get into watch/clock making, almost bought a clock shop...

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Making a clock or watch sounds so cool, but I can't even make it through a Clickspring video there is no way I could do that
 
ctwo: What can really help with small parts is a Levin lathe with a stereo zoom microscope over it.

I spent a lot of my career making tiny parts where dozens would fit inside your part.
 
We had 5 Levins with Fagor controls at the shop I retired from. Great little machines, but it was a challenge learning to program them. We made extremely precise gold alloy electrical pins on them for the government.
 
The Levin I had was strictly manual. But still amazing. A complete set of D collets cost over 10,000 dollars nearly 40 years ago. Don’t ask me what the lathe cost.
 
Ours were all bought used. I remember talking to the parts guy at Levin many times, although I forgot his name. He sounded like he had smoked all his life but knew the machines very well.
 
900ss said:
Ours were all bought used. I remember talking to the parts guy at Levin many times, although I forgot his name. He sounded like he had smoked all his life but knew the machines very well.
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I wish you had met Polish Jack from Tapemation. Guy was brilliant and a bit of a loose cannon all at once. I never saw him without a cigarette in his mouth. Ever. He taught me how to program Mazak’s. Face to face, at the control. With a Marlboro Red lit and dangling from his lip. I was young and hungry. :laughing
 
Mike95060 said:
I wish you had met Polish Jack from Tapemation. Guy was brilliant and a bit of a loose cannon all at once. I never saw him without a cigarette in his mouth. Ever. He taught me how to program Mazak’s. Face to face, at the control. With a Marlboro Red lit and dangling from his lip. I was young and hungry. :laughing
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And then you had a one week all expenses paid to Flow Waterjet in Kent. Good times Mike!
 
I machine nothing but I do enjoy this thread a lot. Please keep posting the nerdy things you make.
 
Rmcpherson said:
That Doosan machine looks very nice, big fan of the Fanuc controls.
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Same. I felt like the old school Fanuc's were very operator friendly and safe to step through block by block. Single block, feed to zero, cycle start and watch the distance to go. If that number looked good, especially on a new tool call, you had a lot of confidence you were doing things right. :thumbup
 
Even though I do not have a million dollar machine or even an EDM, you guys are making me miss my shop. I'll be in the area on Mother's day so I might have to stop by and single point a new screw or something.
 
I'm no machinist with my 4 years of high skool metal shop, but do have an import 14x40 in the shop to make tools and some simple parts.

Love seeing the real artists at work!
 
Have to love engineering. Ordered me pie jaws for a job I completed with hard jaws on a spud before they showed up. Little on the large side.
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machinist adjacent:
I asked the Ferrari mechanic next door what he uses to clean gaskets off of expensive aluminum engine parts and he showed me these fancy things from MAC
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being a cheapskate I tried some generic ones from the Rain Forest site and they sucked. there is a requirement that the scraping edge needs to be quite precicely flat or it'll leave drag marks and an incompletely scraped surface. SO, I returned those and went to my meager collection of chipped carbide lathe inserts, grabbed a random bolt and turned it down to fit in the screw hole and did some brazing and BLAMMO! it works well enough till I get tired of it being so small and pony up for the good ones.... through summit seems to have the same thing around $50
 

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I have made quite a few custom scrapers from dead carbide tools :thumbup

Most of mine are variations of a 3 faced scraper that I grind on a Deckel Single Lip Grinder
 
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