Hey guys,
I'm "new" to the forum but I've been lurking around for a month or so.
I really want to start making small stirling engines. Possibly a flame licker at some point, and maybe some day far down the line a small IC engine. But mostly just stirling engines.
After doing a lot of research I was fairly dead set on buying a Taig lathe, and their milling attachment for simple facing operations. By the time I put together all the necessary parts, mounting board, motor, end drill, etc Im looking at around $600-700 before buying any cutting tools.
That got me into the price range of the Seig lathes, which I entertained for a while because they have threading capabilities, but ultimately decided against these machines as I live in an apartment and have almost zero space available to build a machine shop, and I want small precision work.
After some more reading here I notice that a lot of people prefer the Sherline lathes over the Taig lathes, for several reasons I wont go into here. I started looking at the Sherline and I would be paying at least $1000 for a Sherline lathe, without even getting the $120 milling attachment.
In my search for a better deal I came across someone selling a 3 axis Sherline CNC mill, with steppers, controller, power supply, etc. for $900. Im now considering going with the CNC mill as my first machine tool, rather than the more traditional route of starting with a lathe. :hDe:
Having never built an engine before Im speaking from ignorance, but I think that I should be able to use a CNC mill to create any engine parts that I need to. The only real limitation I can see is precision turning of pistons, which I could probably do by mounting it in the milling head and putting a lathe cutting tool in my vice.
So I ask the experts here, if you have CNC mill, do you really still *need* to have a lathe to build a model engine? Obviously having both would be better, and I might add a lathe at some point down the road. But Im already way over budget here, and buying both at the same time just isnt possible.
Any thoughts or guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks!
I'm "new" to the forum but I've been lurking around for a month or so.
I really want to start making small stirling engines. Possibly a flame licker at some point, and maybe some day far down the line a small IC engine. But mostly just stirling engines.
After doing a lot of research I was fairly dead set on buying a Taig lathe, and their milling attachment for simple facing operations. By the time I put together all the necessary parts, mounting board, motor, end drill, etc Im looking at around $600-700 before buying any cutting tools.
That got me into the price range of the Seig lathes, which I entertained for a while because they have threading capabilities, but ultimately decided against these machines as I live in an apartment and have almost zero space available to build a machine shop, and I want small precision work.
After some more reading here I notice that a lot of people prefer the Sherline lathes over the Taig lathes, for several reasons I wont go into here. I started looking at the Sherline and I would be paying at least $1000 for a Sherline lathe, without even getting the $120 milling attachment.
In my search for a better deal I came across someone selling a 3 axis Sherline CNC mill, with steppers, controller, power supply, etc. for $900. Im now considering going with the CNC mill as my first machine tool, rather than the more traditional route of starting with a lathe. :hDe:
Having never built an engine before Im speaking from ignorance, but I think that I should be able to use a CNC mill to create any engine parts that I need to. The only real limitation I can see is precision turning of pistons, which I could probably do by mounting it in the milling head and putting a lathe cutting tool in my vice.
So I ask the experts here, if you have CNC mill, do you really still *need* to have a lathe to build a model engine? Obviously having both would be better, and I might add a lathe at some point down the road. But Im already way over budget here, and buying both at the same time just isnt possible.
Any thoughts or guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks!
