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Boring head for long pipe

elderlad

Plastic
Joined
Sep 22, 2021
Bill here from Bellingham, WA. Just joined the group hoping to learn from people's helpful advice. Wanting to expand my shop to include a large lathe for machining hydraulic cylinders. Discovered it's expensive to have custom hydraulic cylinders built. (for a variety of reasons) Seemed like something I might want to take on. Am looking for a used lath, perhaps an oilfield lathe that can hold the pipe in the chuck, and through one or more steady-rests. Figured I would need a generator as I only have single phase power available. I am undecided as to the length of the lathe bed. Thinking that I may be able to get by with a 120 inch center if I build a boring attachment bolted to the end of the lathe. It would need to slide in and out on a hydraulic rod. Stability is a big issue, but I don't think I want a thirty to forty foot lathe taking up space. Perhaps some advise on this. Next, ideas for a boring head, (or heads). I will need to bore into pipe that will have been welded. There will be either a bump from a weld or a divot. In either case, there will be a tendency for a boring head to vibrate. I had hoped to build my own boring heads and perhaps put spring-loaded wood dowels to prevent the vibration. Would need several sizes of course, to do various size pipe. Honing heads have felt followers for stability. Figured with a rough surface, wood might hold up better, and be inexpensive to replace. Your thoughts on the whole project?
 
I think you're better off buying honed tubing and polished rod then building the rest if you want custom cylinders.

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Check CRC Inc. I don't see how you could make honed tubing as cheap as you can buy it. Their prices on chromed rod is also cheap. They are not the only ones by any means. I have built a few custom cyls using their products.

The mark up on custom cyls from equipment manufacturers is very high. So that is an area where I can save a lot of money by building in house.

If you are contemplating building any cyls that can be replaced by tie rod agriculture cyls then don't bother. They can be had for the same or less than you can make them.

You can make good money in hydraulics,but I think you are trying to reinvent the wheel just starting out.
 
I have done some tube boring jobs that I took in because the customer was lazy and didn't know how cheap honing and honed tubing is. I told them, but they just wanted me to do it.

After I charged $100/hr shop rate for making the boring bar, setting up and boring the tube and charged for the boring bar material the job was about 3 times what a piece of honed tubing from Scot Industries would have been shipped to their door.

You can make a ton of money in hydraulics if you are good at it. There's a pretty steep learning curve to gaining the knowledge through experience to take on the high paying jobs though. Very easy to make very expensive mistakes.

As far as equipment to bore things goes a HBM is more versatile than a big lathe, but neither one can do it all.
 
David Wilkes on YouTube has numerous videos, including boring to size using cartridge tooling, complete with Tufnol spacers, he’s retired now but works part time for another company, I’d guess one of the most knowledgeable guys on YouTube, ( think tank gun barrel boring)
Mark
 
The secret to making bucks in hydraulics is to sleep in the shop,and be open for emergency repairs 24/7......you can charge what you like to do simple jobs like broken fittings rewelded,or bent/broken rod replacements ..anything to get a machine going in the middle of the night or weekend......cash in advance ,of course......these guys have a funny way of changing their opinion of you soon as their machine is operational again.
 
I've a 10" through hole turret lathe that would do just what you want. No need to start with tubing, drill from solid. Freight on 9 tons would be more than the lathe itself.

But you are going about it the hard way. Design the cylinder yourself, make the butt and gland if necessary, thread the tubing. But buy honed tubing and chromed shaft. I will guarantee I can sell you honed tubing cheaper than you can make it unless you need some oddball diameter, in which case you will be making seals as well.
 
Reply Boring long pipe

I think you're better off buying honed tubing and polished rod then building the rest if you want custom cylinders.

Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

:D:D Thank you for your advice. Better to consult with the PROs than get myself in trouble. I will take that advice. Bill
 
I've a 10" through hole turret lathe that would do just what you want. No need to start with tubing, drill from solid. Freight on 9 tons would be more than the lathe itself.

But you are going about it the hard way. Design the cylinder yourself, make the butt and gland if necessary, thread the tubing. But buy honed tubing and chromed shaft. I will guarantee I can sell you honed tubing cheaper than you can make it unless you need some oddball diameter, in which case you will be making seals as well.

I see Prince was showing some kind of roller burnishing operation, maybe instead of honing.
 
Prince hones and skives their own product, depending on which plant the cylinder is made at. Small bore stuff and tierods they will use honed tubing and spot hone, but for bigger stuff they skive after ports, etc. are welded on.
 








 
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