What parts to make to learn to make parts?

Hi Everyone,

I have recently restored my 1945 9a and I've even made a few items on it, a collet bar, thread protector for the spindle, and then just a bunch of chip making on various metals for fun.

As a real beginner to metal lathe working I was wondering if there are any items that would be good "practice" pieces to teach me some of the other basics of lathe work. I got into working on the lathe for the potential of making my own parts for bike racing and some hobby type work, so I don't want to just waste a bunch of metal making scrap.

Any ideas? Having some plans to follow would be cool so I can learn to read those as well. Special tools or helpful parts would be great but remember I'm on the new side so nothing super complicated.

If there are any teachers out there that have school projects I would be interested in things like that.

cheers!

monty

Make a tail stock centre for pipe, boring bars, soft face hammer, slide hammer, Mandrels, and practice threading different threads

What better way to learn on your South Bend than from South Bend's book on first-year lathe work:

WEWilliams - South Bend Lathe Library

Steve

Make your own jack stands. They're handy to have.

How about finding something in these:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/what-have-you-made-your-south-bend-147978/
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/what-have-you-made-your-south-bend-129669/

Steve

Building a small steam engine is always fun, I built this one using a speaker magnet for the fly wheel, yeah the chips stick to everything when you machine it and getting them off was a bit**. Steam engines can be pretty simple to make to very complex, this one is one of the simplest. I built in over the course of a couple days using what was laying around the shop and ended up giving it as a gift to my cousin for Xmas, tubalcain AKA mrpete222 of YouTube has a few series on building little steam engines, as well as many other machine shop videos, I highly recommend you look up his channel and check it out. You'll learn a lot just by fixing up things, get a somewhat clapped out little machine and rebuild it, with all the resources online you should be able to find all the technical info you need, and probably most of the parts for more common machines, but I'd make it a point to make all you can make your self if parts are needed. Here's a page out of the atlas book showing some bars that were made, they have no practical purpose but I always thought they were kind of neat, and making some would be a good way to practice threading and several other operations as well as getting a good feel for the machine, I suppose you could make them in to candle sticks, in fact I may make some and do that my self, would look neat on the mantle.

Edit: Sorry the picturs went wonky, they were right side up when I took them, unsure how to fix.

SteveM said:

What better way to learn on your South Bend than from South Bend's book on first-year lathe work:

WEWilliams - South Bend Lathe Library

Steve

Click to expand...

FYI, I had to right click and "save target as" for the links on that page...for some reason I couldn't load them in the browser...(probably isolated to me.)

And I don't know how, but Ive never seen that First Year Lathe Work bulletin before! (now if only someone reproduced the castings...)

Thanks for all the tips! I've been going through those threads and getting some good ideas.
My first son was born yesterday morning so I may be making rattles and toy cars for a while. Not that I mind though.

Thanks again. This forum has helped me out a ton!

Cheers!
monty

I formerly taught an exceedingly elementary machine shop course to physics graduate students, just enough to introduce them to the subject. An easy, quick project was for them to make an edge finder.

Best wishes --- Allen

brass punches and drifts

You might make a slide tap holder.. Take a tap a tap holder and press on a 3” (or 4") long with 1” OD shank at the drive end having a ½ id 2”deep bore. Using you put a ½ shaft in the tail chuck, set tap driver on, and hand tap drilled holes. Yes you might pin it to be sure it will not turn. Yes you might make an end center plug so you can still use it on the center of a drill press or lathe center.

You might make a stop block (search lathe stop block photos to get ideas) having an ID thread to the block and OD thread to the screw with the knob having dial measure lines that you cut with the lathe having the tool bit side ways and use saddle travel to travel the bit horizontally on the knob. Use some figuring and choose a gear to use as an index locator to get the right number or lines to make a common size perhaps .001/.010 / 10mm.. or what suits your plan.

You have to figure the thread you wish to use... Such as a 40 thread is common for micrometer for .025 = one full turn.
Yes you can make a 1/2 - 40 thread with a little figuring. Yes a 1/2-20 will be .050 for a full turn.

Yes the block portion will be difficult..You may need to mount a vise to the cross slide and an end mill cutter in the lathe chuck.

Turn-thread ID and Od- Drill- mill- use gears as index - create an new thread- cut horizontal lines- design and draw-measure.

New to the lathe.. Remember that abrasive polishing (sand paper or the like) can put abrasive in the lathe works just like lathe grinding.. Have some towels or the like to cover the works and best have the works down the bed and out of harms way if possible.

Re: for post #12.

Agree finding and using a gear in your lathe for a finger index to make the lines might be tough for a new lathe person.
Another index method for a simple knob is to put a turn of masking tape around your chuck. 3.14259 x the diameter gives the circumference. That divided by the number of lines (perhaps 10) give the distance between lines so with a jo-block or a home made measure you may ball-point pen mark around the tape for an index. Yes the pen line width will be considered so you return to the first mark with going around. With going from a 8” chuck to a 1 ¼” or so knob you will be surprised how very close you can get. Much like drawing 10 x scale and then measuring the drawing.