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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Gunsmithing
Lathe and Mill Recomendations??
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<blockquote data-quote="westcliffe01" data-source="post: 1159463" data-attributes="member: 35183"><p>The only advice I can give the OP is to skip the 10x20 or 9x20 size chinese lathes. The bed has such a tiny cross section on those that you will never be able to take a serious cut. All you will get is chatter.</p><p></p><p>By the time you get to the 14x40 size range, you are dealing with a more substantial amount of material in the bed, cross slide, saddle and headstock. The spindle itself will be a lot larger and have a workable size bore for pretty much any kind of gunsmithing job.</p><p></p><p>Just understand that the machines, as you get them, are not precise by any definition of the word. You can expect everything to be out of parallelism, square and concentricity. This applies to the headstock, tailstock, ways relative to headstock, cross slide relative to ways, tailstock spindle relative to headstock and ways etc etc. Like a house that is started on a non square and level foundation... If you have the gumption and time, most of this can be fixed, shimmed etc.</p><p></p><p>Something to generally think about, is that for gunsmithing purposes the main thing is to get the spindle parallel to the ways on 2 axis and then get the tailstock similarly aligned to the spindle. Usually, for the short distance that one would thread a barrel, any deviation of the saddle would be manageable. For machining the OD of barrels, don't even think about it without a taper attachment. The compound slide is far too short and is the least rigid part of the machine. Or else sub out that work to someone with a CNC lathe so you get a nice finish.</p><p></p><p>I went for old American Iron, but it is not a quick way to get from A-B either. I bought an old Sheldon I believe 15x60 (weighs about 3500lb) and took it to pieces since it had a lot of wear. I paid about $900 for it, including a huge new toolpost and several chucks. Sandblasted the bed down to white metal to get rid of all the corrosion and old bondo and got it painted with an epoxy primer by a local collision repair place. Then took it to one of the last shops left in the area and got the ways re-ground. They started by grinding the feet of the bed parallel to the ways, then flipped it over and cleaned up the ways (1 V + 1 Flat). It was a very modest cost, I know many places quoted over $2000, this place was about $600 and they are a very busy shop.</p><p></p><p>The leadscrew was completely shot and the saddle and cross slide still needs work. I am likely going to buy a new leadscrew from Misumi and then machine the ends to fit. Will then need to figure out how to rebuild the half nuts. So it is a long project for me, but a new machine of this size and weight would easily run $30k today.</p><p></p><p>At work, I bought one of the 14x40 size Chinese machines for $3800 and then spent some money fitting a semi decent buck collet chuck to it and re-cutting the adapter plates for the chucks so that they actually run somewhat true. We do not use the tailstock much except for drilling so have not messed with it, but we know it is off.</p><p></p><p>Best of luck...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="westcliffe01, post: 1159463, member: 35183"] The only advice I can give the OP is to skip the 10x20 or 9x20 size chinese lathes. The bed has such a tiny cross section on those that you will never be able to take a serious cut. All you will get is chatter. By the time you get to the 14x40 size range, you are dealing with a more substantial amount of material in the bed, cross slide, saddle and headstock. The spindle itself will be a lot larger and have a workable size bore for pretty much any kind of gunsmithing job. Just understand that the machines, as you get them, are not precise by any definition of the word. You can expect everything to be out of parallelism, square and concentricity. This applies to the headstock, tailstock, ways relative to headstock, cross slide relative to ways, tailstock spindle relative to headstock and ways etc etc. Like a house that is started on a non square and level foundation... If you have the gumption and time, most of this can be fixed, shimmed etc. Something to generally think about, is that for gunsmithing purposes the main thing is to get the spindle parallel to the ways on 2 axis and then get the tailstock similarly aligned to the spindle. Usually, for the short distance that one would thread a barrel, any deviation of the saddle would be manageable. For machining the OD of barrels, don't even think about it without a taper attachment. The compound slide is far too short and is the least rigid part of the machine. Or else sub out that work to someone with a CNC lathe so you get a nice finish. I went for old American Iron, but it is not a quick way to get from A-B either. I bought an old Sheldon I believe 15x60 (weighs about 3500lb) and took it to pieces since it had a lot of wear. I paid about $900 for it, including a huge new toolpost and several chucks. Sandblasted the bed down to white metal to get rid of all the corrosion and old bondo and got it painted with an epoxy primer by a local collision repair place. Then took it to one of the last shops left in the area and got the ways re-ground. They started by grinding the feet of the bed parallel to the ways, then flipped it over and cleaned up the ways (1 V + 1 Flat). It was a very modest cost, I know many places quoted over $2000, this place was about $600 and they are a very busy shop. The leadscrew was completely shot and the saddle and cross slide still needs work. I am likely going to buy a new leadscrew from Misumi and then machine the ends to fit. Will then need to figure out how to rebuild the half nuts. So it is a long project for me, but a new machine of this size and weight would easily run $30k today. At work, I bought one of the 14x40 size Chinese machines for $3800 and then spent some money fitting a semi decent buck collet chuck to it and re-cutting the adapter plates for the chucks so that they actually run somewhat true. We do not use the tailstock much except for drilling so have not messed with it, but we know it is off. Best of luck... [/QUOTE]
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