Hi,
Mission impossible is over. We now have an Atlas and a Lathe on a table I made from angle & channel I found in a scrapyard, 60 x 60 x 6mm in a clean bright room with not too much of junk still there.
Looking at this lathe, new Wow, Megs of questions:
1) The thing is huge, Bigger, simpler than I expected. I'm sure close to 200kg. We have a 5in, 125mm 3-jaw fitted and we bought a 125mm 4-jaw which takes a different adaptor. Looks like a big thing to remove the chuck ( I know about wood bed protectors ) but I’m sure there is loads of stuff we can do on the 3-jaw. I want to get to use the taper, MT3. Why so heavy, the headstock is a cube of solid heavy metal with about 1 hole in it? What are we gonna do with it? I hope we can work accurately, big or small.
2) Simple? The cross-slide while big looks thin, will I never be able to do any milling on it? The gear train? 40t spindle and plastic intermediate gears, 100t on the screw. Looks to me like the finest feed I can get is 1/24 of 2mm feed screw using my biggest and smallest gears, about .08mm. For close tolerance work don’t I want much finer feeds, what does a real lathe have? The gear “tree” only has 1 slot and seems like I can only have 2 axles between the gears? I want to turn l.h. theads, what are differential screws and how do you use them? I suppose when I know what I’m doing I’ll be wanting to mod the thing???
2) Which brings me to my next question? I just know I’ll love cutting screws. Assuming I’ll have to quest for spares, how does one get the most life out of the half nut and screw, is there not a proper procedure to allow the threads to engage without strain? Lube and keeping swarf out?
3) Care and feeding? The Atlas 7 as well, which I suspect needs a complete internal clean and lube, what can I do with minimal disassembly? The Lathe is covered in hard wax-grease so needs a good wash?
4) Safety? What foot control does a big lathe have?
I’ll post pics with my further questions, need held from the brats here. I wonder if I will ever get to the goal of model power…
Ant
Mission impossible is over. We now have an Atlas and a Lathe on a table I made from angle & channel I found in a scrapyard, 60 x 60 x 6mm in a clean bright room with not too much of junk still there.
Looking at this lathe, new Wow, Megs of questions:
1) The thing is huge, Bigger, simpler than I expected. I'm sure close to 200kg. We have a 5in, 125mm 3-jaw fitted and we bought a 125mm 4-jaw which takes a different adaptor. Looks like a big thing to remove the chuck ( I know about wood bed protectors ) but I’m sure there is loads of stuff we can do on the 3-jaw. I want to get to use the taper, MT3. Why so heavy, the headstock is a cube of solid heavy metal with about 1 hole in it? What are we gonna do with it? I hope we can work accurately, big or small.
2) Simple? The cross-slide while big looks thin, will I never be able to do any milling on it? The gear train? 40t spindle and plastic intermediate gears, 100t on the screw. Looks to me like the finest feed I can get is 1/24 of 2mm feed screw using my biggest and smallest gears, about .08mm. For close tolerance work don’t I want much finer feeds, what does a real lathe have? The gear “tree” only has 1 slot and seems like I can only have 2 axles between the gears? I want to turn l.h. theads, what are differential screws and how do you use them? I suppose when I know what I’m doing I’ll be wanting to mod the thing???
2) Which brings me to my next question? I just know I’ll love cutting screws. Assuming I’ll have to quest for spares, how does one get the most life out of the half nut and screw, is there not a proper procedure to allow the threads to engage without strain? Lube and keeping swarf out?
3) Care and feeding? The Atlas 7 as well, which I suspect needs a complete internal clean and lube, what can I do with minimal disassembly? The Lathe is covered in hard wax-grease so needs a good wash?
4) Safety? What foot control does a big lathe have?
I’ll post pics with my further questions, need held from the brats here. I wonder if I will ever get to the goal of model power…
Ant
