Hello all,
I bumped into this excellent forum while I was looking for information on building engines (lucky me ha?). I must admit that I was very impressed by the quality of the work here.
I have several questions I hope someone can help me with. Please understand that I am new to this, I initially intended to buy a woodworking lathe, since I am now working mostly with hand tools on wood.
Then I was exposed to the metal milling/turning world and started reading and was enthusiastic about it (making engines, clocks etc) . I am trying to decide now what would be best for me a lath or a mill and from which vendor (Micromark, sherline or taig) and which one can work well with wood as well as metal.
Do you think a lathe would be more suitable if you are new to this sort of work?
I am especially interested in making a small (steam?) engine, from a plan, without using a CNC machine.
I looked at these:
Taig:
TAIG-2019CR-ER (http://www.super-tech.com/root/itm.asp?p1=itm-Taig-Mills )
Micromark:
http://www.micromark.com/MICROLUX-7X14-MINI-LATHE,8176.html
http://www.micromark.com/MICROLUX-BENCHTOP-MINI-MILLING-MACHINE-ALL-INCH-MINI-MILL,8102.html
and of course Sherline which is available in my country (Israel) without the need to ship internationally.
Any comment would be appreciated especially from those who own any of these machines and used it to build their first engine. would this http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/steammodels/simpleoscil/simpleoscil.htm be considered a good first project?
Another question i have is, do any of you use CAD software such as AutoCad even if your mill is NOT CNC ready?
Thanks,
Thanks and have a wonderful weekend,
Shlomo.
I bumped into this excellent forum while I was looking for information on building engines (lucky me ha?). I must admit that I was very impressed by the quality of the work here.
I have several questions I hope someone can help me with. Please understand that I am new to this, I initially intended to buy a woodworking lathe, since I am now working mostly with hand tools on wood.
Then I was exposed to the metal milling/turning world and started reading and was enthusiastic about it (making engines, clocks etc) . I am trying to decide now what would be best for me a lath or a mill and from which vendor (Micromark, sherline or taig) and which one can work well with wood as well as metal.
Do you think a lathe would be more suitable if you are new to this sort of work?
I am especially interested in making a small (steam?) engine, from a plan, without using a CNC machine.
I looked at these:
Taig:
TAIG-2019CR-ER (http://www.super-tech.com/root/itm.asp?p1=itm-Taig-Mills )
Micromark:
http://www.micromark.com/MICROLUX-7X14-MINI-LATHE,8176.html
http://www.micromark.com/MICROLUX-BENCHTOP-MINI-MILLING-MACHINE-ALL-INCH-MINI-MILL,8102.html
and of course Sherline which is available in my country (Israel) without the need to ship internationally.
Any comment would be appreciated especially from those who own any of these machines and used it to build their first engine. would this http://www.steves-workshop.co.uk/steammodels/simpleoscil/simpleoscil.htm be considered a good first project?
Another question i have is, do any of you use CAD software such as AutoCad even if your mill is NOT CNC ready?
Thanks,
Thanks and have a wonderful weekend,
Shlomo.