Hi,
This time next week I should be getting my first machines, and I want to start off with some simple, big, useful things like a face plate (used to be you got that with your lathe), not Vblox, because I won’t have a mill yet, vices, swivelvice ( graduations later). I want to make screws and dovetails. Also I want to learn to work quite big, one goal is ½ horse power from a stirling.
I’m gonna want some fairly big bits of potatoes to turn into chips and I’m thinking auto scrap. There must be a really decent grade of iron in a crankshaft. The local auto engineering shop throws away big truck cranks. Are they like swiss cheese with oilways all under (over) the journals, the webs even. What kind of steel do you get from a drive shaft, or are only the CVs fancy steel? Are gearbox and diff internals too tough for ordinary machining? But cars are built largely for lightness and swank, so do you really get big chunks anywhere? Trucks have some quite thick leaf springs, how useable are they, have they got like built in warp?
I’m gonna have the tools soon, but I don’t have much steel.
Ant
This time next week I should be getting my first machines, and I want to start off with some simple, big, useful things like a face plate (used to be you got that with your lathe), not Vblox, because I won’t have a mill yet, vices, swivelvice ( graduations later). I want to make screws and dovetails. Also I want to learn to work quite big, one goal is ½ horse power from a stirling.
I’m gonna want some fairly big bits of potatoes to turn into chips and I’m thinking auto scrap. There must be a really decent grade of iron in a crankshaft. The local auto engineering shop throws away big truck cranks. Are they like swiss cheese with oilways all under (over) the journals, the webs even. What kind of steel do you get from a drive shaft, or are only the CVs fancy steel? Are gearbox and diff internals too tough for ordinary machining? But cars are built largely for lightness and swank, so do you really get big chunks anywhere? Trucks have some quite thick leaf springs, how useable are they, have they got like built in warp?
I’m gonna have the tools soon, but I don’t have much steel.
Ant