Shop Truths, Phrases, Tales; and Outright Lies

[C-Bag]

The ONLY good thing about import machinery is there is no guilt whatsoever in modifying the bejesus out of them. Now I get you guys who did machining for a living couldn't do that because the stuff belonged to the shop. And in the grand scheme of things it's a sad state of affairs that we are basically buying a poorly conceived kit for many times what the original cost new and didn't need to be modified. But the orbit us hobby guys inhabit is much like the hot rod and custom car community. Where it's about making stuff a direct reflection of your creativity and ability. More time is spent working on it than doing any work with it and that is totally foreign I'm sure to you Frank and TM51. I had no idea of this phenomenon until I bought my 9x20 lathe.

I spent hours and hours researching, reading forums and cruising CL seeing what was out there and then looking it up. Everything was too expensive as I'd set the cap at $1,000. I know, a paltry amount but I'm not looking to go into biz, just take care of some simple projects and I'd gotten the bug. What I found was a guy who epitomized the world I had no idea existed. He'd bought this lathe as a hobby, bought all this tooling. Found Steve Adair's site on modding the 9x20 and set about trying to trick it out and painting it. Then decided he wanted to dump all his machine stuff and make a homebuilt airplane. So I paid $600 for it with a stand, QC tool rest, 4 jaw, 3 jaw 5" and 3 jaw 3" chucks, follow rest, steady rest, 2 sets of change gears, one metal and one plastic and a bunch of other odds and ends including a huge binder with every mod and manual for the 9x20. Bless his heart I hope the guy pays more attention to building his plane than he did to the details of getting this lathe going. I knew I was in deep yogurt when he asked me if I knew how to weld when we were loading up and I got a good look at the stand. The welds were all bird droppings. He had done a ton of cosmetic work but as I'd find out later he had taken it apart to paint, but didn't know how to adjust or align things much less clean properly.

After being around this world for a while there are those that their projects are all about making stuff for the lathe and there guys like me who have projects in mind and end up improving and dialing in the equipment as needed. And by the amount of this stuff moving around out there there's a lot of upgrading to bigger and better and finally find the old iron of their dreams. And until I make that jump(if I ever do, I dream of a Logan 12x36) I won't know how truly ergonomically bad my knock off is. But huge on my to do list are larger handles for the cross and compound and new larger dial on the cross.

[Frank S]

ME! Creative? perish the thought. As for modifying my most favorite machine in the whole world for modifying was my old Wanrer& Swasey #5 a massive 4 tons worth of Iron 2 turrets tear it down to the last gear clean and lubricate everything then literally toss it back together set up a dozen tools on it 6 on the cross slide turret 6 in the tail stock set all of the stops chuck up a bar switch it on then spin the huge ship's wheels once in a while to advance the turrets the amount ot special tooling fixtures that could be made for it wasn't even limited to one's imagination because others had already made 1000's of things for them and published most of them .
when it comes to micro lathes or Asian knock offs your correct most don't mind making mods to them to suit their needs partly due to their relativey low initial cost but more due to the individual wanting or needing it to preform tasks it was not made to do because the company had a target market in mind That being to put aa low cost basic machine in the hands of a beginning hobbyist as possible. Think of Henry's model T he made millions of them and put them in the public's driveways by 1915 there was a guy in Colorado who had turned one into front wheel drive and later even made a 4 wheel drive version they were turned into pickup and flat bed delivery trucks even had a 3rd axle added to them
A logan 12x36 is a good choice I really liked my little South Bend 9 but it was also my first lathe and I was a teenager at the time
getting a little larger the Homach 15 by 40 is an easy to learn lathe but may take up a lot more room than many folks have with its foot print of 3 ft by 6 ft
I found that the Harrison 280 Trainer manual CNC was also a great little platform strip off all of the CNC and the cabinetry making it manual only the foot print was reduced to 2 ft by 5 ft 280 mm by 1000mm turning cap. I carried mine partially disassembled in the back of my 2007 trailblazer then in the elevator up to my 3rd floor apartment where I set it up along with my Clarkston tool & cutter grinder and a 30" by 96" work bench a cheap 3" post floor model drill press in a 12 by 12 bed room Drove my wife crazy tinkering around inthere till 2 or 3 in the morning creating things to use at the factory

[C-Bag]

I have many constrictions on my criteria. Price, size, popularity, perceived quality and support. South Bend is like Atlas where they have this huge hobby following and so their price reflects that. Too many times I've seen one where I could buy a comparable lathe with more tooling such as Logan's for a fraction of the price. But it's taken me all this time to know that. I probably would have been happy enough had I bought one of those garage queen Atlas or SB's, but I would have not had any $$$ for tooling and looking back who knows it they weren't worn out?

Every once in a while I see basket case SB's like a heavy 10 recently. It so reminds me of when I was into murder cycles and there were basket cases all over. Somebody gets it, takes it completely apart and loses steam and it sits. Who knows what's there, what shape it was in and yet these guys want premium price that I could buy a functional tool.

In hindsight I didn't do bad with the 9x20, they are everywhere still even with all their shortcomings and parts are still available through Grizzly at a reasonable price. And it has made it so I had to learn how to fix and adjust it so I knew why there was a problem with its output. I still cruise CL and dream of a nicer machine but so far practicality stays my lust for bigger and better.

[Frank S]

As far a bigger and better I'd love to get my hands on one like TM51's avatar I'm kind of like Tony carlini with the classic cars he chases. Do I need one? NO! Do I want one? YES! but unlike him I have to add one part part to that equation. Can I afford one? NO!
TM51 turned me onto a fine an dI mean really fine looking from the pictures. medium sized radial drill 12" column 4 ft arm $4 MT with the base mounted block table and the side extension base it was probably in the 4000 LB range by the time I could have driven up to get it rented a forklift to load it paid for it and driven home I would only have had about $1200.00 tied up in it That amount sadly at this time is not in the budget unless I planned on cleaning it up painting decaling and flipping itfor about 5 times what I paid for it. My problem is I am not a flipper I get something it's mine forever hopefully Being that it is a radial drill The wife would disown me if I were to buy it with the intent of flipping it anyway She'd find something to do with it even if nothing more than cleaning it every day and switching it on and off just to watch it run.

[C-Bag]

Yeah, I accumulate, not dissapate too. Because of the limited space with no extra storage it's quite a dance. One day there was a guy on CL wanting a table mill and a guy selling a Rockwell mill. So I had worked out with the table mill guy to sell him mine and deliver and in the amount of time it took for that, the Rockwell was gone. Probably just as well.

That's interesting your wife is so attached to radial drills. I guess there's a job/tool for everybody!

[Frank S]

She keeps telling me that with all of the scrap that I have lying around I should just build me one sized for what I do now not for when she and I had our shop.
Who knows I might just build a nice little 8" column 3 ft arm 2 Hp #4 MT 4" diameter spindle with an 8" stroke someday I nearly have enough junk to do it anyway

[Toolmaker51]

[a $1000.00 price cap] So I paid $600 for it with a stand, QC tool rest, 4 jaw, 3 jaw 5" and 3 jaw 3" chucks, follow rest, steady rest, 2 sets of change gears, one metal and one plastic and a bunch of other odds and ends including a huge binder with every mod and manual for the 9x20.

C-Bag and anyone else; that 600 bucks [even if it had been the 1000] teach you more than 15x that would, spent on tuition for a LOT of occupations. Pretty damn good ROI for anyone's ledger.

It isn't my goal to demean Asian imports; and hope it's clear I salute those who pry their way into this avocation. And pry it is. Even those who are paid for it, most will relate their attraction rarely if ever finds a like-minded employer. One party finds the knack for something enjoyable that will feed AND satisfy him; the other so bound by investment, he's nearly boxed into having to continue.
C-Bag sees the issue precisely.
One group continually modify for performance, which can be satisfying enough as a project itself.
One, such as modelers work in reduced scales, that proportionately approach Frank's W&S #5 running 300lb valve stems or castings, in a hundred pound lathe making 4oz engine cases.
Others maintain running condition, generating projects that near the operational envelope, so they modify or tune to preserve the machine.

All are distinct yet completely related learning processes, none far from what occurs commercially. Most large plants have maintenance techs that just work on and re-qualify machine tools. There are more small shops than large; plus while near stagnant in US - Europe is catered by a huge quantity of 'cottage industries'. In many shops, the user is the machine mechanic short of actual rebuilds.

In no way do 3 examples illustrate the breadth or depth how machine tools are utilized, but I am positive every commercial version has a comparable private type. Only sheer project size delineates them; large or small, NO shop [or country] on the planet who can or would run every variety of job. I'd say machining 'hobbyists' are more willing to consider improvements and projects than many full-fledged establishments can. From that stems my aversion of 'hobbyist' as a term - try to live without the inventions of 'hobbyists' in use everyday.
Getting paid to launch chips isn't the real reason we do. All the Mister's; pushers like Kearney, Trecker, Brown, his buddy Sharpe, that creep Starrett, extravagant and goofy looking ol' Niles, Bullard, Blanchard, all of them got us addicted.
Rat bastards, lol.

That is probably why the avocational side of the community exists " I desire/ need/ or imagine ______________, yet only have ______________ as a resource. How can I accomplish _______________?

[C-Bag]

Knowing you Frank, it just lacks the drill head itself. And it would be able to take a nuclear hit if any of your posts are any indication

[Frank S]

As usual Tm51 nails it with his comments on no large company / country could make it without the home inventors
and right again be it a huge 120 ft long behemoth of a lathe made with RR rail ways and a concrete bed with a 90 ft long 60 Inch diameter shaft spinning so slow you can read the number written on the side while blowing out 50 lbs of chips a minute or a unimat 3x9 making hair fine cuts on a .500 x 4 inch cylinder spinning 1000 RPM the process is relative the outcome is the same a finished part from raw stock. scale up or scale down just about all if not all special tooling jigs fixtures ETC were the product initially by 1 person with an idea.
C-bag for the drill head I might even make it powered by a hydraulic motor and a flow compensated pump like a 3 head drill press I made for a screw conveyor company 30 years ago. Or is I decide to make it geared I have several riding mower transmissions laying around just pull the gears make my shafts where needed weld up and machine a housing, much fussing lots of coffee homemade lime sherbert or ginger-ale sherbert punch later I'll have a drill head. it will be the T slot table that will take the most time to make unless I find one in a scrap yard that I can modify

[C-Bag]

I am part of that rare cottage industry here in the US. It was not by design, more by luck and I thank my lucky stars for the folks that contact me from all over the world. It's amazing how it has dragged me along and made me do things I wouldn't have done on my own. Like getting into computers and shortly thereafter the net came along and like a black hole we got pulled into it.

Like the music world, learning machining is all about first getting your feet wet then finding out who you are as you develop. I'm one of those that have the net to thank for being able to research what would fit my needs, then find it then learn how to use it. I really only truly learn by doing. And having a bunch of other folks who want to share their experience and projects is amazing.

I also had to go and figure out just what the heck a radial arm drill was. This seems like an interesting one:WALKER TURNER Radial Arm Drill Press | eBay

After I saw it I realized there was a huge one somebody was trying to get rid of one in Fresno several months ago. If my memory serves me(which it doesn't now like it used to) it was one of those things if you could haul it, you could have it. It was behind a huge building and who knows how big it was.