There's more 'n one way.......

[mike ford]

Vic,
I know you haven't had your lathe very long, but at one time we were new to it also. There is no substitute for making "chips" to learn. Making tooling for the lathe, projects around the house, or for a neighbor will help you learn. If you have a friend that is a machinist or gunsmith, show him some work and ask him how to improve. If there is a scrap yard near you, you should be able to buy "drops" or other scrap metal much cheaper than industrial suppliers. This stuff does pretty well for projects, where there is little stress involved. Also "take off" barrels can be used for various projects and you can get a good feel of how barrel steel cuts. The single most helpful thing I learned was how to "center" the cutting tool. A good project to start with would be a boring bar holder. Boring is necessary for the tooling we have been discussing and is a necessary skill, as is threading. If you get "stumped", email one of us.
Mike

[sharps4590]

You have mentioned that before, about centering the tool, and I took it to heart. It does make things a lot easier and smoother!!! Our local gunsmith is a good machinist, works at the university part time and it's an engineering school so he gets some pretty wild requests. He has always been willing to help and the seeing things done is really enlightening. Now, what do you mean by "drops'?

[mike ford]

" Drops" are the leftover ends of rods, bars, etc. from jobs in a machine or welding shop. They are often sold as scrap metal, and are easier to use than scrap that has been cut from other items.
Mike

[Nathaniel Myers]

Speedy Metals is a great supplier for small pcs of material. Prices are very competitive.

Find out where your local machine shops buy their steel from, and call and inquire about drops. I usually try to buy steel in 12ft bars, its cheaper that way. But many shops will only order what is needed for a job. So 14" of material may be left over. You can often get that 14" piece or whatever the drop might be, for a very reasonable price.

If any of you need a small piece of something, feel free to drop me an email. Shipping will probably cost you more than the small piece of material.

Sharps, if you do not already own a copy, buy a copy of South Bend's "How to Run a Lathe". Even if you do not own a South Bend you will find many great things in that book.

[sharps4590]

Thank you for the recommendation Nathaniel. Yesterday or the day before I was in a book store and saw a magazine I believe called "Machinist". Anyone have any experience with it?

[mike ford]

Vic,
Yes, it is very good and helpful to people like us. It might not apply to those running a shop where production is paramount. What you saw was either "Home Shop Machinist" or "Machinist Workshop"( which was "Projects in Metal", before). I have subscribed to both of them since the 90s(maybe 80s) and have enjoyed them very much, finding them very helpful. One come one month and the other comes the next. Each magazine has 6 issues each year. One of them has a regular column called "The Gunsmith Machinist". Also a couple of the more or less regular contributors are shooters/handloaders and write interesting articles from time to time. A couple I recall from years ago were about making a set of loading for something like the 43 Mauser or Spanish, in two pieces, without a reamer; and making 7.62 Nagant revolver cases from .223 cases, which required significant swageing of the cases. Even the articles about making things that don't interest me usually have something I might use later, such as ways to "set up" the workpiece, or to substitute for some tool I don't have. They also have a website with videos and a forum( I'm not a member, but look at it when I have time). I guess you can tell I think it would help you.

[sharps4590]

Thanks Mike!! Next time I'm in Rolla I will go by and pick it up. I browsed through it fairly quick and it looked pretty good....but I don't remember which one it is.