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Best advice Swifty. Pinning is caused by to much pressure on the file. Work at elbow level. Feet set at shoulder width. Rock the whole body with the stroke not just the arms. Rest the index finger on the top of the file and curve the other fingers gently under the handle. Let the file do the...

My guess as to your problem is too much abrasive on your lap. If the work floats on the abrasive it is no longer following a flat surface. Too mush abrasive cuts slowly and poorly. Less abrasive cuts faster. Only enough abrasive to finely rub across the lap is necessary. Less is more. How...

The powered knee horizontal mills can be very difficult to repair. Consequently if something breaks in the knee it's often worked around for years and the sold as is. Beware any statements such as "the clutches are a little soft" or "the rapids could use adjusting." Usually means a major...

Sounds like a useful little trick. I'll have to try that. Thanks Gary.

Nice looking. Adequate amps and all the little knobs to twiddle. Lots of fun ahead for you.

Thick wall square tube is most likely 6061. 6061 is cold workable. We bend it to about 5x radius ( I forget ) on width all the time. Also available in 6063 which is easier to bend and takes a tighter radius.

Upsides of an R8 mount is better rigidity and you won't spin the shank in the collet. Upside of a straight shank is you need less clearance over the work to change cutters. Tool change clearance can be a major concern working with table top mills.

Home made lathe dogs.

Home made lathe dogs.

I like the idea of inserting dowel pins after drilling but before profiling. Another trick on the thin pieces is to mill the profile not quite to full depth, leaving between 2 and 10 thou depending on the work. Then cut the flashing away after milling. You're not going to be able to do any...

I don't see a problem with 5/16 studs and flat nuts. Have various lathe attachments with that arrangement and haven't had a problem with pullout. I also like mklotz's idea of a subplate. Whatever you do make sure the top nuts have a large enough flange to engage the ears on the vice. Don't...

While a combo machine might have a place in a assembly shop that had space constraints I don't see the device pictured as being relevant to your stated goals. If you want to learn 'the trade' you need to be training on the machines that you would be using in a production environment. This means...

Any of the brands you mentioned would have excellent boring heads. If buying new I'd get the Flynn or the Criterion with a slight preference to the Flynn. But the quality would be excellent either way. I have an R8 shank Gamet Boring/Facing head rebadged by ENCO. A very capable head and the...

Happened to an employee of mine. We had some PC board parts that were glued on with CA. They were told repeatedly to remove the bad parts by cutting and scraping but everytime I stopped by they were using a heat gun to remove the parts. Well, sure enough, this guy comes up to my desk with a...

Raising the right front leg of the lathe makes the tailstock end of the piece smaller. Lowering it makes the end larger. This is assuming a long enough bed that the lathes own weight makes a difference. This also assumes the headstock and tailstock are otherwise in line. On my old sebastian...

Those square nose bits such as used for trepanning, cutoff, slotting and etc need to have either some top rake or a top U channel to provide chip control and help with the chatter. As Ed T says the tool is sticking out way too far. If it sticks out from the tool holder any farther that one bit...

That's a bit closer than is usually needed ( and a lot closer than my poor old lathe could ever do. ) When turning shafts you do whatever you have to do to get the taper out. Whether that be shim the legs, set over the tail stock or whatever. I usually try to avoid fussing with the tailstock...

It's not that critical. Usually I'd use whatever cutter was going to be needed for subsequent operations. In the absence of any other considerations I'd use my 1/2" rougher just because thats the cutter I use for everything. In general you don't want to bury an EM any more than half it's width...

That's an interesting re-purposing of a bolt-circle calculator. Another method for radii cutting which allows you to directly cut a radii is to follow a template. FYI approximating a curved surface by multiple square cuts is called kellering.

Use 'em till something breaks. Tapped holes in AL will fairly quickly wear out if used repeatedly but you can always put an insert in there so I say get some use out of them first.