Great video , I have been a machinist all my life and built pool cues for 30 years. I have been using the mini lathe since it first came out for putting pool cue tips on. I think I pretty much did all them mods at one point. For me my fav was my rear chuck to hold the pool cue shaft. Through the years I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars on the mini lathe . I used to have a portable one that I would set up at pool tournaments and do tips. the whole thing was mounted to a small butcher block cart that I had on caster wheels . the front was framed in with a Plexiglass window and fluorescent light overhead . I also made an extension so I can put the whole cue or shaft in between centers , it was a simple Bolt on with no flex , the carriage never needed go back there just the tail stock. I had some of the best pool players in the world walk up and have me put their tip on .. I wish I could post pics on here. Anyways awesome vid , keep up the good work.
Really IMPORTANT is that when bolting down the lathe, an indicator clock should be used as to check that you don't actually bend the lathebed when tightening the bolts. Because this is actually very easy to do! The forces you apply with the fastening bolts to lathe bed are considerable. And it is done at the far end corners of the lathe, so giving the bed a twist is really, really easy. (Do some readin up on the procedure.) The other side of the matter is of course that bolting down the lathe adds a lot of rigidity, as pointed out in the video. Also adding a big HEAVY steel base as suggested in the video, is a really good idea. Any added mass reduces vibrations. And then bolt that stell base to the bench "lightly" for safety and things like sawing etc, just not to have the whole thing "skating" around on the workbench. These mini lathes are really way to lightweight and flimsily designed, but it comes with the economy side of things, so doing the above alleviates a lot of the compromise inherrent in the "mini/micro" aspect of these lathes. Always buy the heaviest and biggest lathe you can possibly accomodate! It makes a huge difference! Even distance between centres is a lot more important than one might realize at first, because once chucks and tooling like drills are mounted, there is so little space left on a mini lathe, that just changing for another drill size is often a really annoying hassle. I'd say length of bed is more important than a quick change toolpost, when it comes to make work easyier
Great video, I’ve been a maintenance machinist for forty years and you learn how to make due with some pretty junky machinery. I own a couple of mini lathes and a mill and have been running then for five or six years as bought. After watching your video on up grades I think I’ll try a few and make my retirement a little mor ergonomic. Thanks for sharing.
I've been machining over 32 years. You need to slow down your spindle speed and start using some coolant or cutting oil. The blue chip is a giveaway to using too fast a spindle speed. It will destroy your insert tooling much faster than it would normally last. The steel you're cutting will work harden as you cut it, and that will contribute to poor finishes. And the carbide inserts you're using have the wrong geometry for turning or facing. Get to know the cutting speed of the materials you cut in FPM (feet per minute). A quick and dirty calculation for a practical spindle speed when turning is RPM = (4 x FPM)/D, where D is the diameter of the work in inches. When drilling or milling a hole, D is the diameter of the cutter. But I cut the calculated spindle speed in half . Saves drill bits and mills, especially when drilling or milling deep holes.
I agree with you but this lathe has a fixed speed motor, so there is not much I can do about the rpm. The inserts still last a long time so its not a huge concern for me.
@@artisanmakes I hope I didn't offend you. You've done some good mods to that machine. I'm just surprised you can't change the spindle speed. Don't you have a belt and stepped pulleys? Or is it a direct drive without a speed control? What is the RPM? I'd be looking for an electronic speed control or a set of stepped pulleys as my first mods. Suggest if you insist on using insert tooling, you use a holder that takes a square insert, and use an insert with a .03 to .05" radius corner for most of my turning and facing. (It will give you a better finish than that sharp diamond shaped insert, and last much longer.) But I think brazed tooling would be an even better bet, because the shank of the tool conducts away more heat from the carbide than an insert holder. . Just for reference, I use the Hardinge speed lathe in my employer's shop on average 5 hours a week. I haven't replaced any inserts or rotated them in at least six years. But I used a couple pieces of brazed tooling for the majority of my work, and it requires only an occasional touch up with a diamond sharpening stone or a green wheel on a grinder.
You might consider putting felt into the oil holes. Doing this controls the flow of the oil to the surfaces requiring lubrication. An advantage is that the oil does not “run out” reducing oil collecting crap from your work and helping to generally keep the tool a little cleaner.
I hope you're proud of your channel, It's really good. If there's anywhere near you that cuts stone for worktops and things like that. Ask them if you can buy a cut off slab of granite or marble, they'll probably be happy to drill a few holes in it, and bolt your lathe to that. From the mass and rigidity you'll see a massive difference in several ways, stability, surface finish, vibration, chatter. Keep up the great work!
One other detail to attend ASAP. Is to flatten the lathe feet. Out of the box they are badly finished. Half an hour and a wet stone. Make a world of difference! Mine would wobble out of the box. Sure footed by now! ;-)
I cut a dovetail into a right angle plate to mount to the cross slide, then mounted a t-slot plate to the vertical face of the right angle plate in order to use it as a horizontal mill. It worked out perfect to cut the new gib strips and carriage retainers. The next thing that I'm looking for is a good way to be able to adjust the angle of the top slide faster
This is one of those videos I keep coming back to whenever I'm looking to upgrade my machine a bit. On the topic of the gib strips, I made a couple out of brass but instead of a mill, I used a surface grinder. If anyone is looking to do this, all you need is a tilting vise and a surface grinder. I started by tilting the vise to 60 degrees, which I verified with a comparator (there are plenty other ways to verify this without a $10,000 piece of inspection equipment haha, just what I had available at our shop). With the vise at 60 degrees, I mounted the square stock in it, and brought it to the surface grinder. I simply ground one side down until I had taken the flat off and I was left with a sharp edge. You'll then need to take the part out of the vise, as you can't grip it anymore, and use the maglock to directly fix it to the surface grinder, sitting on the edge you just grinded. Now when you grind the other side, since the part is already laying at a 60 degree angle, you're already going to get a correct angle on the other side. I took material off until I had a general shape of the gib strip, then switched to a higher grit white wheel. I cleaned up all surfaces and simply went back and forth, taking off small amount of material, test fitting it, and repeat until I got a nice fit. Overall it took a while, quite a bit of surfacing but the end result was worth it and I didn't need a dovetail cutter, and didn't have to use our mill. (I mostly did this because I'm an idiot when it comes to milling and I wasn't confident that I could get a good part with the small amount of stock I had available)
Great mods, makes me wish I didn't sell my mini lathe in expectation of buying a better lathe. I have still not bought a new lathe and I miss having the old one.
I found this helpful as I am considering buying my first lathe and like all first-timers the mini-lathe seems like the place to start. I have heard a lot of complaints about mini-lathes however and this video confirmed basically all of them. The consensus I have seen is that you will quickly become frustrated with the limitations of a mini-lathe. It would seem from this video that you have had to replace many of the key components such as the fixtures, motor, bearings etc. because they weren't up to the task. Many have advised that it is better to buy a larger lathe that is used. There is greater precision, build quality, and more features over a brand new mini-lathe. Thanks.
I'm new to lathe work and just bought a mini mill. I'm an automation engineer and will CNC it soon. Your videos are awesome and I'm learning well. As for your motor upgrade, a $30 20k rpm 500w or greater with static gearing, being a DC version can easily be turned into a variable speed 50-2500rpm full load using a micro controller, an igbt or MOSFET, a hall effect rpm meter and 10mins of novice programming for
I did mention this in your mill upgrades video, but I'll mention it here too, as it's more on-topic. Adding an Electronic Lead Screw [ELS] is a great upgrade, especially of you do a lot of thread cutting, but also handy for controlling feedrate for better surface finish. As a bonus you get away from having to constantly swap the change gears in and out. Speaking of change gears, the quality of the factory ones is pretty terrible, and the plastic ones tend to crack and break pretty quickly, I recommend getting an after-market metal set.
I’ve been following your mods. Very good work. I’ve got a Southbend FOURTEEN. A much bigger lathe. But even so, I’ve made upgrades that help. Amongst the most major were also a cam lever for the tailstock. Like with yours, it was a pain to constantly need to get the wrench and have to reposition it twice to lock or unlock. Drilling or boring deep holes, for example, means moving it in and out to clear chips and lube a number of times. The cam makes that fast, and (almost) fun.
You can at a pinch use your lathe as a milling device. Buy a small milling machine vice and fabricate a bracket to mount it on its side to your toolpost. Mount the mill cutting tools (non tapered ) into the lathe chuck. Your biggest challenge will be to ensure that the toolpost mounted vice is perfectly perpendicular to the lathe . Crude but does work..
You can get vertical milling slide attachments that are designed to mount on the cross-slide, giving you a Z axis in addition to your X and Y. This allows you to undertake small milling work on your lathe with similar accuracy to a proper mill. I will be purchasing one for my Boxford at the end up January.
It would be AWESOME if somehow some of your mods were to get to the manufacturers of these lathes. they could do some of them without much additional costs. and the manufactures who did this would sell more of them.
It would be nice but it would indeed increase the cost. I’m curious how it could not. Everything is a cost - labor, better parts, electricity, and the time, etc. These awesome mods all take a lot of each. It’s well worth it to a hobbyist but when getting them out the door is key, it adds up a lot. That’s just manufacturing - pick your quality point and QC to that. So it’s simple, higher end lathes have these mods built in but it will cost more to have someone else do it for you. A good exercise is to consider “without any additional cost” so you would freely do some mods on all our lathes because it wouldn’t put you out anything at all, right? Not trying to be smart but the costs are indeed there. I agree though, the mods are great!
I have a cheap mini lathe and love it! I've done a few small upgrades, but after watching your video I may just buy something nicer after you account for all the time spent upgrading it! haha. Thank you for sharing all the upgrades tho.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I can agree that the time spent might put some people off, but spread over the course of 2 years, it isn't that much. Cheers
Lots of great mods that you've done! Two other mods to consider: an ER30 headstock collet chuck, and a lever-action tailstock (you would need a spare tailstock to convert to lever-action). Drilling and reaming is so much easier with a lever-action tailstock!
Thanks for the video and insights. From what I can tell from using these mini lathes and watching people do upgrades, the best path would be to buy something else
I recognize some of the same issues in my Sieg machine, but a few seem to have been fixed in newer models: lever-locking tailstock, carriage gear protector, and okay-ish gibs. Favorite (purchased) upgrade: a rotary encoder for the tail stock so I can exactly drill to depth.
Thanks! Just ordered the 8.7" x 29.5" w/1.5 hp brushless motor and a 1.5" spindle bore. I was eyeballing the full-size lathes, but being a newbie, I thought I'd drop $1300 first before I drop $13,000...we'll see how things go. Thanks again, some very good ideas!
I also highly recommend a waycover. i´ve made mine from a piece of sheetsteel which sits just in front of the main carriage and is long enough to only reduce travel by about 5mm and still catches most of the chips produced by turning and drilling. It saves a lot of time in cleaning and probably reduces wear on the machine bed
What Quelix said. I did the same thing and it does wonders for keeping the ways clear. I set the length by adding ~2mm to the spacing from the head stock to crash my main turning tool into the jaws of the chuck I use most often. Keeps everything clean and helps prevent visits from Mr. Bozo.
Thanks for your great ideas, I have two of these lathes, but I think the bearings on my oldest will need replacing one day. My first one has a brushless motor and it has been very good except for the circuit board blowing up one day, but I fixed that by buying another board (these are not cheap or plentiful) so I am hoping it will not happen again as I like the variable speed and the board are hard to replace. I use those aluminium tool holders, but steel would be better. I have had a lot of problems with the cross slide lifting while cutting and currently I just keep the tool close to the holder and push down on the cross slide while cutting.
That was simply super. Just loved those upgrades, and that's a lesson for me, and things that I should try. Would really love to be able to make a half nut, but my space is too tight.
thank you for your video, i got my lathe, same model as you have a good few years ago on the advice of a friend who was a very good engineer, ( retired rolls royce ) unfortunatly he passed away earlier this year so now i'm having to rely on people like yourself to provide me with info to make the lathe as good as it can be, as i'm a retired mechanic i have some basic skills with lathes but i keep finding small problems with it as you have found though it's knowing what is wrong and how to fix it is where the problems are for me and this video has gone a long way to show me where to look, i have fitted a quick change tool post and made a carrige lock and done my best with the ways and gibbs, i still have the tailstock to sort but with your help i'm getting there bit by bit, as i only use the lathe now and again to make spacers and other small bits i don't suppose it needs to be that accurate but i'm a bit anal i suppose you call it when it comes to doing things right, i would like to use it for threading and other stuff but my confidence is not there yet, one of my main gripes is parting off even with alloy bar it's so slow and jams up now and then, i would like to have a miller but with my use and lack of experience and of course the extra cost i don't think that would be an option, for now at least, i'll use the link and see what happens, thank you.
Parting can be very tricky. Be absolutely sure your parting tool is not above center even a tiny bit because the work rotation will pull the tool down deeper into the work piece causing the tool to snap or jam. If anything a .001 below center is much betrer.
Hi I too was an apprentice at Rolls Royce (East Kilbride and Hillington,Scotland). Your problem with parting off may be reduced if you part in revise. Turn tool upside down and come in from the back (remember to reverse the head stock this way the tool will have less force on it and it will clear the chips automatically) I like this lathe and have modified a lot. Please contact me if you want any more information Fred @@opinionated6034
An easier fix for the top slide leadscrew is a washer. Find a flat washer with a hole that fits closely over the screw and has an outside diameter at least as big as the bushing. If it's larger, put it on a bolt with a nut to hold it against the head, then chuck the bolt and turn the OD down. Drill two holes through the washer where the bushing mounting holes are. Counterbore the slide face of the bushing so the collar on the screw sits barely below the surface. Replace the two screws with slightly longer ones when putting that back together. This mod loses zero travel forward and only as much rearward as the thickness of the washer. The best mods cost nothing at all. The easiest is to take the cross slide bushing off and remove the paint off the end that fits against the carriage. Instant backlash reduction. I further improved it by facing that end of the bushing until there was next to nil clearance for the collar on the screw. Another no cost mod is removing everything from the bed, mounting it upside down on a mill, then cutting the feet bottoms so they're flat and at the same height. That greatly simplifies shimming when mounting to a bench so there's no twist or bow. There are two factories that make these 7" lathes, SIEG and the better one. The better one's saddle is rectangular instead of "H" shaped so it's very easy to add a carriage lock, just drill a hole where you added that piece of steel bar. The better one has a slightly thicker apron and dual ball bearings on the carriage crank VS a plain hole on SIEG's. SIEG uses (or used to) three bolts to mount the headstock to the bed. The better one uses four. SIEG doesn't have oiling holes in the leadscrew bushings. The better one has oil holes with countersunk openings. One more thing the better one has over SIEG's is on the right end of the lead screw there's a special nut with a threaded insert to take up any endways slop. Put a thin brass washer on each side of the bushing and that can be tightened to zero slop. This company also offers hardened and ground way surfaces if the importer wants that. Lathes with that get a label put on the right end of the bed. The company that's not SIEG uses a nice Pulse Width Modulation motor controller. SIEG tends to not do a good job finishing the bottoms of the bed feet where the other company at least does a cutting pass, likely with a big fly cutter. This video is an unboxing of one of those better lathes. th-cam.com/video/Behm1oMubzs/w-d-xo.html One thing to watch out for is many companies selling 7x lathes *start out* buying from the better factory then later switch to getting lathes from SIEG. Harbor Freight and Grizzly have always bought their from SIEG. My first metal lathe happened to be one of these better versions, bought from a company called Homier Mobile Merchants. They ran a fleet of semi trucks around the USA, setting up shop here and there to sell all kinds of imported stuff from China. Where places like Harbor Freight sell a SIEG 7x10 but that 10" is between plain centers, the one I got was advertised as a 7x12 and that 12" was between a center in the tailstock and the face of the stock 3 jaw chuck. SIEG has somewhat improved the quality of their 7" mini lathes. My second lathe was a 7x10 from Grizzly with their serial number 346. It was likely from the very first batch they imported. Previous owners had abused the poor thing in many ways, most likely due to its many 'built in' faults. The underside of the ways weren't parallel to the top side, not even in the center. I was able to correct the outer part on my mill but I didn't have the tools to fix the inner part, but since nothing but the tailstock clamp used that it wasn't critical. The motor controller was a very primitive SCR chopper style and one of the main power resistors had gotten so hot it unsoldered itself at one end. A quick hit with a soldering iron had it going. By the time I was done correcting all its problems I almost liked it more than the longer one from the other factory. I thought about getting a PWM controller for it but never got around to it.
for the carriage retainer strips a very simple and effective way is to use shimstock in the shape of precision washers that you just stack on the mounting bolts between the carriage and the strips. That way you can trial and error your way to perfectly adjusted strips without any machining.
The casting in my seigX2 mini mill came pre bent as well as had a musical feature from the column's casting core shifting, leaving a blade thin section to support the dovetails, oh the joyous clanging tones of vibrating zed axis.
Great video, I have a Vevor 7x14 and got it for really cheap on eBay but ways and lands have a big gap (maybe 1/16 or 3/32) between the land which angles down from the ways to the lands, should I try to machine the ways groove deeper to lesson the angle. I would have to do that on the headstock, carriage, and tailstock.
Superbe mon ami, j'attend mon Tour neuf la semaine prochaine et tellement hate de travailler avec. Je vait faire les améliorations que tu dit de faire surtout fermé l'engrenage avec une tole. En tout cas merci beaucoup pour ces infos, je te suis maintenant! 👌👍
Thank you for these tips. Although I must say here that I have already made most of these mods two years ago. And also some that are not listed here. My goal was greater rigidity and accuracy of the machine. I'm just lazy about making a summary video. Maybe I'll do it again someday. : D
I have never ever seen anyone going down the road of improving a chinese mini lathe without first having an almost full metal workshop setup, most often including a milling machine :) I've just finished watching a German youtuber going that road. He casually dishes out things like chucks he received for free... In Poland you'd pay 1/4 of the price of the entire chinese lathe just for that welded L-shaped steel plate :)
Seeing as how most of the upgrades you suggest would be better made with a mill I thought for sure one of the upgrades was going to be a mill bed upgrade for the lathe
I think that the way to go with the carriage is tapered gibs that can be externally adjusted. I have found this to make improvement in rigidity, as you can tighten them down as needed.
That was certainly my back up plan if the new strips didn't work. I am sure tapered gibs net much better results but I am sticking with this set up for the time being. Cheers
@@davidwillard7334 What is your favorite liver tine fourscore? Does it hurt when you slivy the chubble? Engrossed because fluffy noodle. Sap on yarn, also. Hammer skip the plume vest. Crest west, lest we best the pest. Garry Kasparov is. Mushroom talent. Eh?
I plan on doing a couple of upgrades to my Vevor 7x14. But at some point it would be better to just buy a better lathe.😅😅😂 Im happy I only need mine to do 2 simple small operations, but out of the crate to have the tool holder so far off and not provide shims to help line up center to stock does suck and yea im looking at buyin an adjustable quck tool head. I just feel like that was done on purpose to get you to buy an upgrade out of the box.
On the channel "Aussie Shed" the creator takes a mini-lathe with a very poorly ground bed. After much tedious lapping, he gets both sides of the bed lapped down to equal thicknesses from end to end. It's not a scraped surface but, it serves very well. My guess is that you would be very pleased to have the same thing done to your lathe.
Independently of the quality or need for most upgrades on the mini lathe. Some of which I implemented myself. My best advise would be. To get familiar with the tunning procedures of the OEM lathe. Simple as that! Many of the original solutions are not the best, the most comfortable to use, etc. BUT they do WORK! That should be the principal conclusion of all this. Are there better ways to do it. Are there improvements to be made. Sure there are. But the OEM can work amazingly well if one knows what to do... This comes from someone who got a "lemon"! Out of the box it would chatter turning plastic!! So trust me when I say it can be done with plain OEM stuff. ;-)
Yeah aluminium was fine. I eventually replaced it steel but I don’t think I saw much improvement in doing so. Either way both were far better than having the compound on.
Hi from France, and thanks for this video! I'm considering starting out my own workshop, after years of lurking, using bad maintained machines at work at some time, etc etc... I'd have two questions though: 1- Do you recommend starting out with the lathe or the mill? I'd go for the lathe spontaneously because it's the machine I know the best, BUT the mill looks kinda required to do the mods to get some accuracy from the lathe... Thus my question. And then there is the question of money, and how to cleverly kinda stagger the expenses... Any advice would be appreciated at this stage. 2- Regarding benches/ stands for, say C3 lathe and X2 or X2.7 mill, is there a good affordable option? Some recommendations? I've taken a look on secondhand industrial benches around home, rather rusted and expensive... So, maybe it's time to try some welding a box frame and putting a thick slab on it? Or maybe I'm overthinking it, which I'm also familiar of? On this subject I've found this video: th-cam.com/video/IbfUaeUp7RY/w-d-xo.html Well build I'd say, maybe a bit too much though? Looks like those benches are a bit of a can of worms unfortunately, it's not that clear for (cheap) novices. Many thanks for your help anyway!
Depends on your use case but I'd go with a lathe, its what I did. Unless you specifically need a mill. There are many talented channels that are able to make stuff with only a lathe. Plus you can use the lathe as a mill with a vertical slide. IMHO those lathe or mill benches unless you get expensive ones are never that great.
I'll probably do that when I next pull it apart to decrease the bearings. And no need to change the plastic spindle hears since I power the spindle directly from a pulley mounted to the end of it. Cheers
I'm adding a verticle slide and a tilting rotary table to mine as I don't have a mill, not sure how well it will work but hoping it will be a good option to swap out when needed, what do you think?
All ill say is that you will be very limited by the swing of the lathe, usually not too much room before you hit the bed with the compound. It can work, just be mindful of it. A compound with T- slots will be very useful in this situation.
I would like to have a mini lathe to make threaded torch parts that are no longer available. Would it take long to learn how to do this? I don't have the time to become an expert machinist especially at my age. Thanks for any responses!
Hi, and thanks for making all the videos. I have a Bernardo Profi 400 V with issues in the spindel bearings. Something is uneven, even when all gears and pulleys were removed. So I had to replace the 30206 P5 bearings with new from SKF. I have managed to get the spindle out. But the outer parts of the bearings are still in the headstock. Shall I replace them as well or can I keep them as they are? (I suppose I shall replace them...) I'm a bit worried that I will not get the new in the same location. It looks like there is no flange to mount the bearing against. (Just a continuous hole trough the headstock where the bearings + covers are pressed in the correct place.) But I could do some measurements before I take it apart...
Very useful video!! I mean you don't have to do all 20, but modify as you see fit for what you use your lathe for. As most of the modifications you showed us are cheap and do not require much tooling, OR effort it is strange that the manufacturer does not put just a little more into this mini lathes. If you do all 20 it reminds me of a joke about a guy who had the soles replaced on his shoes and while he was at it he also got new leather.. 🙂
At 3:35 the whole compound slide was bobbing up and down....at all times when turning the gibs on the compound slide should be TIGHT to prevent any movement, they should only be slackened off slightly when doing a taper.......that is the first thing to correct......the next thing is to get rid of the piston type tool post........some like it but it's not al that great.
I probably should have mentioned that that footage was taken before I made the leadscrew constraints. Without that mod I had to back off the gib pressure or the cross slide would jam. That's all fixed now and the gibs have been replaced. The compound is probably the poorest bit of design on these lathes. As for the piston tool post, I am sure you would notice a difference on a bigger lathe, but here I can't see it making a difference. Cheers
"at all times when turning the gibs on the compound slide should be TIGHT to prevent any movement" - the real problem is that the the gib strips rock because they are so narrow and the clamp screws work on an angled face. No matter how tight you do the clamp screws, the assembly still rocks (they will push the slide up if you really tighten them). The contact face of the gib needs to be ground flat and the rear face needs to have pockets cut into it at the correct angle to take the ends of the clamp screws (which need to be changed for dog point screws) - that improves it a lot.
only one i can think of is leadscrew cover....steveohdee used flat spring from some telescoping martial artist gizmo from eBay and xynudu used some other source of flat spring, like a roadside find that he disassembled.
Great video , I have been a machinist all my life and built pool cues for 30 years. I have been using the mini lathe since it first came out for putting pool cue tips on. I think I pretty much did all them mods at one point. For me my fav was my rear chuck to hold the pool cue shaft. Through the years I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars on the mini lathe . I used to have a portable one that I would set up at pool tournaments and do tips. the whole thing was mounted to a small butcher block cart that I had on caster wheels . the front was framed in with a Plexiglass window and fluorescent light overhead . I also made an extension so I can put the whole cue or shaft in between centers , it was a simple Bolt on with no flex , the carriage never needed go back there just the tail stock. I had some of the best pool players in the world walk up and have me put their tip on .. I wish I could post pics on here. Anyways awesome vid , keep up the good work.
You can simply post LINKS to pictures that are stored elsewhere online.
Really IMPORTANT is that when bolting down the lathe, an indicator clock should be used as to check that you don't actually bend the lathebed when tightening the bolts. Because this is actually very easy to do! The forces you apply with the fastening bolts to lathe bed are considerable. And it is done at the far end corners of the lathe, so giving the bed a twist is really, really easy. (Do some readin up on the procedure.)
The other side of the matter is of course that bolting down the lathe adds a lot of rigidity, as pointed out in the video. Also adding a big HEAVY steel base as suggested in the video, is a really good idea. Any added mass reduces vibrations. And then bolt that stell base to the bench "lightly" for safety and things like sawing etc, just not to have the whole thing "skating" around on the workbench.
These mini lathes are really way to lightweight and flimsily designed, but it comes with the economy side of things, so doing the above alleviates a lot of the compromise inherrent in the "mini/micro" aspect of these lathes. Always buy the heaviest and biggest lathe you can possibly accomodate! It makes a huge difference!
Even distance between centres is a lot more important than one might realize at first, because once chucks and tooling like drills are mounted, there is so little space left on a mini lathe, that just changing for another drill size is often a really annoying hassle. I'd say length of bed is more important than a quick change toolpost, when it comes to make work easyier
Great video, I’ve been a maintenance machinist for forty years and you learn how to make due with some pretty junky machinery. I own a couple of mini lathes and a mill and have been running then for five or six years as bought. After watching your video on up grades I think I’ll try a few and make my retirement a little mor ergonomic. Thanks for sharing.
I've been machining over 32 years. You need to slow down your spindle speed and start using some coolant or cutting oil. The blue chip is a giveaway to using too fast a spindle speed. It will destroy your insert tooling much faster than it would normally last. The steel you're cutting will work harden as you cut it, and that will contribute to poor finishes. And the carbide inserts you're using have the wrong geometry for turning or facing. Get to know the cutting speed of the materials you cut in FPM (feet per minute). A quick and dirty calculation for a practical spindle speed when turning is RPM = (4 x FPM)/D, where D is the diameter of the work in inches. When drilling or milling a hole, D is the diameter of the cutter. But I cut the calculated spindle speed in half . Saves drill bits and mills, especially when drilling or milling deep holes.
I agree with you but this lathe has a fixed speed motor, so there is not much I can do about the rpm. The inserts still last a long time so its not a huge concern for me.
@@artisanmakes I hope I didn't offend you. You've done some good mods to that machine. I'm just surprised you can't change the spindle speed. Don't you have a belt and stepped pulleys? Or is it a direct drive without a speed control? What is the RPM? I'd be looking for an electronic speed control or a set of stepped pulleys as my first mods. Suggest if you insist on using insert tooling, you use a holder that takes a square insert, and use an insert with a .03 to .05" radius corner for most of my turning and facing. (It will give you a better finish than that sharp diamond shaped insert, and last much longer.) But I think brazed tooling would be an even better bet, because the shank of the tool conducts away more heat from the carbide than an insert holder. . Just for reference, I use the Hardinge speed lathe in my employer's shop on average 5 hours a week. I haven't replaced any inserts or rotated them in at least six years. But I used a couple pieces of brazed tooling for the majority of my work, and it requires only an occasional touch up with a diamond sharpening stone or a green wheel on a grinder.
You got one of the old heads going... lol
You might consider putting felt into the oil holes. Doing this controls the flow of the oil to the surfaces requiring lubrication. An advantage is that the oil does not “run out” reducing oil collecting crap from your work and helping to generally keep the tool a little cleaner.
use pipe cleaners
I hope you're proud of your channel, It's really good. If there's anywhere near you that cuts stone for worktops and things like that. Ask them if you can buy a cut off slab of granite or marble, they'll probably be happy to drill a few holes in it, and bolt your lathe to that. From the mass and rigidity you'll see a massive difference in several ways, stability, surface finish, vibration, chatter. Keep up the great work!
Yeah, that's a great idea for a mod! Increasing the rigidity on a small lathe like this can be a game changer.
]
You can also cast a cement slab.
Cement is Very useful for vibration reduction 😎
One other detail to attend ASAP. Is to flatten the lathe feet.
Out of the box they are badly finished. Half an hour and a wet stone. Make a world of difference! Mine would wobble out of the box. Sure footed by now! ;-)
I cut a dovetail into a right angle plate to mount to the cross slide, then mounted a t-slot plate to the vertical face of the right angle plate in order to use it as a horizontal mill. It worked out perfect to cut the new gib strips and carriage retainers. The next thing that I'm looking for is a good way to be able to adjust the angle of the top slide faster
This is one of those videos I keep coming back to whenever I'm looking to upgrade my machine a bit. On the topic of the gib strips, I made a couple out of brass but instead of a mill, I used a surface grinder. If anyone is looking to do this, all you need is a tilting vise and a surface grinder. I started by tilting the vise to 60 degrees, which I verified with a comparator (there are plenty other ways to verify this without a $10,000 piece of inspection equipment haha, just what I had available at our shop). With the vise at 60 degrees, I mounted the square stock in it, and brought it to the surface grinder. I simply ground one side down until I had taken the flat off and I was left with a sharp edge. You'll then need to take the part out of the vise, as you can't grip it anymore, and use the maglock to directly fix it to the surface grinder, sitting on the edge you just grinded. Now when you grind the other side, since the part is already laying at a 60 degree angle, you're already going to get a correct angle on the other side. I took material off until I had a general shape of the gib strip, then switched to a higher grit white wheel. I cleaned up all surfaces and simply went back and forth, taking off small amount of material, test fitting it, and repeat until I got a nice fit. Overall it took a while, quite a bit of surfacing but the end result was worth it and I didn't need a dovetail cutter, and didn't have to use our mill. (I mostly did this because I'm an idiot when it comes to milling and I wasn't confident that I could get a good part with the small amount of stock I had available)
Great mods, makes me wish I didn't sell my mini lathe in expectation of buying a better lathe. I have still not bought a new lathe and I miss having the old one.
The cutting finish says it all. Impressive machining.
You've been doing some great lathe mod videos lately. We shared this video in our homemade tools forum this week :)
Antonmursid
🇮🇩🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Thank you for spending the time doing this video,
i will be doing a few of your mods to make it more rigid for my Milling attachment .
I found this helpful as I am considering buying my first lathe and like all first-timers the mini-lathe seems like the place to start. I have heard a lot of complaints about mini-lathes however and this video confirmed basically all of them. The consensus I have seen is that you will quickly become frustrated with the limitations of a mini-lathe. It would seem from this video that you have had to replace many of the key components such as the fixtures, motor, bearings etc. because they weren't up to the task. Many have advised that it is better to buy a larger lathe that is used. There is greater precision, build quality, and more features over a brand new mini-lathe. Thanks.
I'm new to lathe work and just bought a mini mill. I'm an automation engineer and will CNC it soon. Your videos are awesome and I'm learning well. As for your motor upgrade, a $30 20k rpm 500w or greater with static gearing, being a DC version can easily be turned into a variable speed 50-2500rpm full load using a micro controller, an igbt or MOSFET, a hall effect rpm meter and 10mins of novice programming for
I don’t even own a mill or a lathe but your camera work and video editing skills are awesome.. the machining too 👍🏻
I appreciate that, thankyou.
Man you rebuild the entire Lathe.
Very useful video thank you very much, I just purchase mine.
I did mention this in your mill upgrades video, but I'll mention it here too, as it's more on-topic. Adding an Electronic Lead Screw [ELS] is a great upgrade, especially of you do a lot of thread cutting, but also handy for controlling feedrate for better surface finish. As a bonus you get away from having to constantly swap the change gears in and out. Speaking of change gears, the quality of the factory ones is pretty terrible, and the plastic ones tend to crack and break pretty quickly, I recommend getting an after-market metal set.
Wait, how does the ELS know what speed the motor is going at?
@@mikkelkirketerp4884 using a rotary encoder on the shaft. With the encoder you can determine speed, and rotational position.
I’ve been following your mods. Very good work. I’ve got a Southbend FOURTEEN. A much bigger lathe. But even so, I’ve made upgrades that help. Amongst the most major were also a cam lever for the tailstock. Like with yours, it was a pain to constantly need to get the wrench and have to reposition it twice to lock or unlock. Drilling or boring deep holes, for example, means moving it in and out to clear chips and lube a number of times. The cam makes that fast, and (almost) fun.
You can at a pinch use your lathe as a milling device. Buy a small milling machine vice and fabricate a bracket to mount it on its side to your toolpost. Mount the mill cutting tools (non tapered ) into the lathe chuck. Your biggest challenge will be to ensure that the toolpost mounted vice is perfectly perpendicular to the lathe . Crude but does work..
What about Z axis? I guess you're typically only using 2 axes
You can get vertical milling slide attachments that are designed to mount on the cross-slide, giving you a Z axis in addition to your X and Y.
This allows you to undertake small milling work on your lathe with similar accuracy to a proper mill.
I will be purchasing one for my Boxford at the end up January.
It would be AWESOME if somehow some of your mods were to get to the manufacturers of these lathes. they could do some of them without much additional costs. and the manufactures who did this would sell more of them.
It would be nice but it would indeed increase the cost. I’m curious how it could not. Everything is a cost - labor, better parts, electricity, and the time, etc. These awesome mods all take a lot of each. It’s well worth it to a hobbyist but when getting them out the door is key, it adds up a lot. That’s just manufacturing - pick your quality point and QC to that. So it’s simple, higher end lathes have these mods built in but it will cost more to have someone else do it for you. A good exercise is to consider “without any additional cost” so you would freely do some mods on all our lathes because it wouldn’t put you out anything at all, right? Not trying to be smart but the costs are indeed there.
I agree though, the mods are great!
@@836dmar Exactly. Even redesigns that don't use any additional material or tooling have a cost to them.
I have a cheap mini lathe and love it! I've done a few small upgrades, but after watching your video I may just buy something nicer after you account for all the time spent upgrading it! haha. Thank you for sharing all the upgrades tho.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I can agree that the time spent might put some people off, but spread over the course of 2 years, it isn't that much. Cheers
Lots of great mods that you've done! Two other mods to consider: an ER30 headstock collet chuck, and a lever-action tailstock (you would need a spare tailstock to convert to lever-action). Drilling and reaming is so much easier with a lever-action tailstock!
Como comprar
I don't have a lathe or a mill, and I've never done any machining. For some reason I just find this video very soothing.
Thanks for the video and insights.
From what I can tell from using these mini lathes and watching people do upgrades, the best path would be to buy something else
Well done video , info’s easily understood and your voice over is pretty relaxing. Great job!🍺👍🏻🇺🇸
Essential watching for someone setting up a lathe!
I recognize some of the same issues in my Sieg machine, but a few seem to have been fixed in newer models: lever-locking tailstock, carriage gear protector, and okay-ish gibs. Favorite (purchased) upgrade: a rotary encoder for the tail stock so I can exactly drill to depth.
Ball-bearing mount for the cross slide screw, great mod and can add a bit more travel.
A cheap lathe can do accurate work with a few adjustments and modifications.
I just saw this in person at harbor freight. Omg. I never understood how tiny she is. How cool. Young made some amazing things on this size lathe!
Subbed 😁
A no bs mini lathe video showing an upgrade path? Wonderful 👍
Thankyou
Thanks! Just ordered the 8.7" x 29.5" w/1.5 hp brushless motor and a 1.5" spindle bore. I was eyeballing the full-size lathes, but being a newbie, I thought I'd drop $1300 first before I drop $13,000...we'll see how things go. Thanks again, some very good ideas!
Thanks, I have a Crenex mini lathe arriving soon and will no doubt incorporate many of your ideas into it.
I also highly recommend a waycover. i´ve made mine from a piece of sheetsteel which sits just in front of the main carriage and is long enough to only reduce travel by about 5mm and still catches most of the chips produced by turning and drilling. It saves a lot of time in cleaning and probably reduces wear on the machine bed
What Quelix said. I did the same thing and it does wonders for keeping the ways clear. I set the length by adding ~2mm to the spacing from the head stock to crash my main turning tool into the jaws of the chuck I use most often. Keeps everything clean and helps prevent visits from Mr. Bozo.
@@davidwillard7334 pl
lots and lots of helping info thanks for taking your time doing this video thanks from me any any one watching this video
All these mods are cool ! I liked the power feed being an old chi=uck chucked into a drill!!!
Thanks for your great ideas, I have two of these lathes, but I think the bearings on my oldest will need replacing one day. My first one has a brushless motor and it has been very good except for the circuit board blowing up one day, but I fixed that by buying another board (these are not cheap or plentiful) so I am hoping it will not happen again as I like the variable speed and the board are hard to replace. I use those aluminium tool holders, but steel would be better. I have had a lot of problems with the cross slide lifting while cutting and currently I just keep the tool close to the holder and push down on the cross slide while cutting.
That was simply super. Just loved those upgrades, and that's a lesson for me, and things that I should try. Would really love to be able to make a half nut, but my space is too tight.
Wow! No grass growing under your feet! Well done 👍👍👍👍
thank you for your video, i got my lathe, same model as you have a good few years ago on the advice of a friend who was a very good engineer, (
retired rolls royce ) unfortunatly he passed away earlier this year so now i'm having to rely on people like yourself to provide me with info to make the lathe as good as it can be, as i'm a retired mechanic i have some basic skills with lathes but i keep finding small problems with it as you have found though it's knowing what is wrong and how to fix it is where the problems are for me and this video has gone a long way to show me where to look, i have fitted a quick change tool post and made a carrige lock and done my best with the ways and gibbs, i still have the tailstock to sort but with your help i'm getting there bit by bit, as i only use the lathe now and again to make spacers and other small bits i don't suppose it needs to be that accurate but i'm a bit anal i suppose you call it when it comes to doing things right, i would like to use it for threading and other stuff but my confidence is not there yet, one of my main gripes is parting off even with alloy bar it's so slow and jams up now and then, i would like to have a miller but with my use and lack of experience and of course the extra cost i don't think that would be an option, for now at least, i'll use the link and see what happens, thank you.
Parting can be very tricky. Be absolutely sure your parting tool is not above center even a tiny bit because the work rotation will pull the tool down deeper into the work piece causing the tool to snap or jam. If anything a .001 below center is much betrer.
Hi I too was an apprentice at Rolls Royce (East Kilbride and Hillington,Scotland).
Your problem with parting off may be reduced if you part in revise. Turn tool upside down and come in from the back (remember to reverse the head stock this way the tool will have less force on it and it will clear the chips automatically)
I like this lathe and have modified a lot.
Please contact me if you want any more information
Fred
@@opinionated6034
An easier fix for the top slide leadscrew is a washer. Find a flat washer with a hole that fits closely over the screw and has an outside diameter at least as big as the bushing. If it's larger, put it on a bolt with a nut to hold it against the head, then chuck the bolt and turn the OD down. Drill two holes through the washer where the bushing mounting holes are. Counterbore the slide face of the bushing so the collar on the screw sits barely below the surface. Replace the two screws with slightly longer ones when putting that back together. This mod loses zero travel forward and only as much rearward as the thickness of the washer.
The best mods cost nothing at all. The easiest is to take the cross slide bushing off and remove the paint off the end that fits against the carriage. Instant backlash reduction. I further improved it by facing that end of the bushing until there was next to nil clearance for the collar on the screw.
Another no cost mod is removing everything from the bed, mounting it upside down on a mill, then cutting the feet bottoms so they're flat and at the same height. That greatly simplifies shimming when mounting to a bench so there's no twist or bow.
There are two factories that make these 7" lathes, SIEG and the better one. The better one's saddle is rectangular instead of "H" shaped so it's very easy to add a carriage lock, just drill a hole where you added that piece of steel bar. The better one has a slightly thicker apron and dual ball bearings on the carriage crank VS a plain hole on SIEG's. SIEG uses (or used to) three bolts to mount the headstock to the bed. The better one uses four. SIEG doesn't have oiling holes in the leadscrew bushings. The better one has oil holes with countersunk openings. One more thing the better one has over SIEG's is on the right end of the lead screw there's a special nut with a threaded insert to take up any endways slop. Put a thin brass washer on each side of the bushing and that can be tightened to zero slop. This company also offers hardened and ground way surfaces if the importer wants that. Lathes with that get a label put on the right end of the bed. The company that's not SIEG uses a nice Pulse Width Modulation motor controller. SIEG tends to not do a good job finishing the bottoms of the bed feet where the other company at least does a cutting pass, likely with a big fly cutter.
This video is an unboxing of one of those better lathes. th-cam.com/video/Behm1oMubzs/w-d-xo.html One thing to watch out for is many companies selling 7x lathes *start out* buying from the better factory then later switch to getting lathes from SIEG. Harbor Freight and Grizzly have always bought their from SIEG.
My first metal lathe happened to be one of these better versions, bought from a company called Homier Mobile Merchants. They ran a fleet of semi trucks around the USA, setting up shop here and there to sell all kinds of imported stuff from China. Where places like Harbor Freight sell a SIEG 7x10 but that 10" is between plain centers, the one I got was advertised as a 7x12 and that 12" was between a center in the tailstock and the face of the stock 3 jaw chuck.
SIEG has somewhat improved the quality of their 7" mini lathes. My second lathe was a 7x10 from Grizzly with their serial number 346. It was likely from the very first batch they imported. Previous owners had abused the poor thing in many ways, most likely due to its many 'built in' faults. The underside of the ways weren't parallel to the top side, not even in the center. I was able to correct the outer part on my mill but I didn't have the tools to fix the inner part, but since nothing but the tailstock clamp used that it wasn't critical. The motor controller was a very primitive SCR chopper style and one of the main power resistors had gotten so hot it unsoldered itself at one end. A quick hit with a soldering iron had it going. By the time I was done correcting all its problems I almost liked it more than the longer one from the other factory. I thought about getting a PWM controller for it but never got around to it.
Gracias por todo su apoyo saludos desde Cuba
for the carriage retainer strips a very simple and effective way is to use shimstock in the shape of precision washers that you just stack on the mounting bolts between the carriage and the strips. That way you can trial and error your way to perfectly adjusted strips without any machining.
The casting in my seigX2 mini mill came pre bent as well as had a musical feature from the column's casting core shifting, leaving a blade thin section to support the dovetails, oh the joyous clanging tones of vibrating zed axis.
I bet this guy can build the best lathe that everyone wants.
Great improvements, some of them I will definitely do for mine mini lathe.
Thank you. I am encouraged.
Ton of good ideas. Mini lathe is high on my list as a near term purchase, so this is great information.
Definitely make me wanna buy a mini lathe as a base unit and mod it to my style, Great Video!
❤❤❤❤ 🎉🎉😮8l8l8l😮😮
Very impressive work mate, well done.
Thank you! Cheers!
fantastic video cheers mate will be doing some of these to my mini dave lol
Great video, I have a Vevor 7x14 and got it for really cheap on eBay but ways and lands have a big gap (maybe 1/16 or 3/32) between the land which angles down from the ways to the lands, should I try to machine the ways groove deeper to lesson the angle. I would have to do that on the headstock, carriage, and tailstock.
6:53 Couldn't you put an endmill in the spindle and then simply run the metal piece across with the tool holder?
Great ideas my friend! Stay healthy.
Simply outstanding!👏👏👍👍👍👍👍
Thats my favorite "Lathenight" Show....
Absolutely great job! The original lathe was really poor quality and now it is a decent machine. Congratulations!
In a video by this old tony about mini lathes he suggested leveling the lathe also I love your content
I am aware of lathe leveling, truth is I have not done it myself and I am not sure how much of a benefit I would get doing it to a 7x lathe.
Superbe mon ami, j'attend mon Tour neuf la semaine prochaine et tellement hate de travailler avec. Je vait faire les améliorations que tu dit de faire surtout fermé l'engrenage avec une tole. En tout cas merci beaucoup pour ces infos, je te suis maintenant! 👌👍
5:39 If I had only one wish for a superpower...
I'd ask for ability to grab the right hex tool size right away )))
Thank you for these tips. Although I must say here that I have already made most of these mods two years ago. And also some that are not listed here. My goal was greater rigidity and accuracy of the machine. I'm just lazy about making a summary video. Maybe I'll do it again someday. : D
I have never ever seen anyone going down the road of improving a chinese mini lathe without first having an almost full metal workshop setup, most often including a milling machine :) I've just finished watching a German youtuber going that road. He casually dishes out things like chucks he received for free... In Poland you'd pay 1/4 of the price of the entire chinese lathe just for that welded L-shaped steel plate :)
As a machinist I thank you!
Seeing as how most of the upgrades you suggest would be better made with a mill I thought for sure one of the upgrades was going to be a mill bed upgrade for the lathe
I think that the way to go with the carriage is tapered gibs that can be externally adjusted. I have found this to make improvement in rigidity, as you can tighten them down as needed.
That was certainly my back up plan if the new strips didn't work. I am sure tapered gibs net much better results but I am sticking with this set up for the time being. Cheers
Now a Mini Lathe… that could be interesting and in my investment range
Vote up, nice video, thanks for sharing :)
Very nice! I like watching your upgrade vids!
Keep em coming!!!!
@@davidwillard7334 What is your favorite liver tine fourscore? Does it hurt when you slivy the chubble? Engrossed because fluffy noodle. Sap on yarn, also. Hammer skip the plume vest. Crest west, lest we best the pest. Garry Kasparov is. Mushroom talent. Eh?
I plan on doing a couple of upgrades to my Vevor 7x14. But at some point it would be better to just buy a better lathe.😅😅😂
Im happy I only need mine to do 2 simple small operations, but out of the crate to have the tool holder so far off and not provide shims to help line up center to stock does suck and yea im looking at buyin an adjustable quck tool head.
I just feel like that was done on purpose to get you to buy an upgrade out of the box.
Machining parts for your lathe using that lathe is like a chicken building a deep fryer with chicken parts. I love it lol.
On the channel "Aussie Shed" the creator takes a mini-lathe with a very poorly ground bed. After much tedious lapping, he gets both sides of the bed lapped down to equal thicknesses from end to end. It's not a scraped surface but, it serves very well. My guess is that you would be very pleased to have the same thing done to your lathe.
How about adding digital readouts , my mill and lathe are user friendly with D. R. O.
Outstanding!
This was awesome
What make and model is this lathe? You give very good information.
Just an FYI your link for the cross slide rebuild is the wrong one.
Great video. very helpful. may I know what angle of cutter you use for the cross slide?
thank you in advance.
For the dovetails I used a 60 degree dovetail cutter
hey, great video
the "cross slide rebuild" link in the the description is wrong :) it links to "lever locking tailstock" video
Nice stuff! I'd suggest some way wipers.
Independently of the quality or need for most upgrades on the mini lathe. Some of which I implemented myself. My best advise would be.
To get familiar with the tunning procedures of the OEM lathe. Simple as that!
Many of the original solutions are not the best, the most comfortable to use, etc.
BUT they do WORK! That should be the principal conclusion of all this. Are there better ways to do it. Are there improvements to be made. Sure there are. But the OEM can work amazingly well if one knows what to do...
This comes from someone who got a "lemon"! Out of the box it would chatter turning plastic!! So trust me when I say it can be done with plain OEM stuff. ;-)
Did the aluminum riser block for the tool post work out ok, as far as rigitity? Was not sure if aluminum would be as good as steel.
Yeah aluminium was fine. I eventually replaced it steel but I don’t think I saw much improvement in doing so. Either way both were far better than having the compound on.
Hi from France, and thanks for this video!
I'm considering starting out my own workshop, after years of lurking, using bad maintained machines at work at some time, etc etc...
I'd have two questions though:
1- Do you recommend starting out with the lathe or the mill? I'd go for the lathe spontaneously because it's the machine I know the best, BUT the mill looks kinda required to do the mods to get some accuracy from the lathe... Thus my question.
And then there is the question of money, and how to cleverly kinda stagger the expenses... Any advice would be appreciated at this stage.
2- Regarding benches/ stands for, say C3 lathe and X2 or X2.7 mill, is there a good affordable option? Some recommendations?
I've taken a look on secondhand industrial benches around home, rather rusted and expensive... So, maybe it's time to try some welding a box frame and putting a thick slab on it? Or maybe I'm overthinking it, which I'm also familiar of?
On this subject I've found this video: th-cam.com/video/IbfUaeUp7RY/w-d-xo.html
Well build I'd say, maybe a bit too much though?
Looks like those benches are a bit of a can of worms unfortunately, it's not that clear for (cheap) novices.
Many thanks for your help anyway!
Depends on your use case but I'd go with a lathe, its what I did. Unless you specifically need a mill. There are many talented channels that are able to make stuff with only a lathe. Plus you can use the lathe as a mill with a vertical slide.
IMHO those lathe or mill benches unless you get expensive ones are never that great.
trad gib strips are two wedges, that slide to fit with locking screws
You can do tapered gibs if you want but this one works fine
Maybe its time to add grease lines to those tapered bearings and change the low/high plastic gears! Great content BTW.
I'll probably do that when I next pull it apart to decrease the bearings. And no need to change the plastic spindle hears since I power the spindle directly from a pulley mounted to the end of it. Cheers
Graphite is also a good for lapping. Kerosene can also be used.
Thanks for the video.
Thankyou, glad you enjoyed it
I'm adding a verticle slide and a tilting rotary table to mine as I don't have a mill, not sure how well it will work but hoping it will be a good option to swap out when needed, what do you think?
Please let me know how it goes!
All ill say is that you will be very limited by the swing of the lathe, usually not too much room before you hit the bed with the compound. It can work, just be mindful of it. A compound with T- slots will be very useful in this situation.
The link to "Cross Slide Rebuild" actually links to "Lever Locking Tailstock"
you mentioned little machine shop in another video, do you have an experience or knowledge about how good the Hi Torque version of this lathe is?
I would like to have a mini lathe to make threaded torch parts that are no longer available. Would it take long to learn how to do this? I don't have the time to become an expert machinist especially at my age. Thanks for any responses!
thanks for sharing you up grades
Awesome videos, friend
Im getting my first metal lathe soon. I hope to use some of your vids as references!
Hi, and thanks for making all the videos.
I have a Bernardo Profi 400 V with issues in the spindel bearings. Something is uneven, even when all gears and pulleys were removed. So I had to replace the 30206 P5 bearings with new from SKF.
I have managed to get the spindle out. But the outer parts of the bearings are still in the headstock.
Shall I replace them as well or can I keep them as they are? (I suppose I shall replace them...)
I'm a bit worried that I will not get the new in the same location. It looks like there is no flange to mount the bearing against. (Just a continuous hole trough the headstock where the bearings + covers are pressed in the correct place.)
But I could do some measurements before I take it apart...
Hi
Where do you get your stock in australia?
Blocks of steel/ali etc?
Very useful video!! I mean you don't have to do all 20, but modify as you see fit for what you use your lathe for. As most of the modifications you showed us are cheap and do not require much tooling, OR effort it is strange that the manufacturer does not put just a little more into this mini lathes. If you do all 20 it reminds me of a joke about a guy who had the soles replaced on his shoes and while he was at it he also got new leather.. 🙂
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
great and helped me a lot.
At 3:35 the whole compound slide was bobbing up and down....at all times when turning the gibs on the compound slide should be TIGHT to prevent any movement, they should only be slackened off slightly when doing a taper.......that is the first thing to correct......the next thing is to get rid of the piston type tool post........some like it but it's not al that great.
I probably should have mentioned that that footage was taken before I made the leadscrew constraints. Without that mod I had to back off the gib pressure or the cross slide would jam. That's all fixed now and the gibs have been replaced. The compound is probably the poorest bit of design on these lathes. As for the piston tool post, I am sure you would notice a difference on a bigger lathe, but here I can't see it making a difference. Cheers
"at all times when turning the gibs on the compound slide should be TIGHT to prevent any movement" - the real problem is that the the gib strips rock because they are so narrow and the clamp screws work on an angled face. No matter how tight you do the clamp screws, the assembly still rocks (they will push the slide up if you really tighten them). The contact face of the gib needs to be ground flat and the rear face needs to have pockets cut into it at the correct angle to take the ends of the clamp screws (which need to be changed for dog point screws) - that improves it a lot.
The QCTP I got was a bit too tall so I had to take a bit off the cross-slide casting to get the tools down to center height.
I removed material from the bottom of the tool holders to bring them into centre height.
only one i can think of is leadscrew cover....steveohdee used flat spring from some telescoping martial artist gizmo from eBay and xynudu used some other source of flat spring, like a roadside find that he disassembled.
what about sticking stock thru head thru 3 jaw?? mine will take 3/4" thru head but then it bumps 3 jaw. Could bore it out?