taiwanluthiers
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2016
- Location
- Xinjhuan District, New Taipei City
So I borrowed a friend's lathe, because I really don't have one, and I need to make a fly cutter since I can't find one in NT40 (in fact I had no way to buy a fly cutter at all in Taiwan, nobody knows what it is, and Aliexpress doesn't have one either. In Taiwan they just use face mills when they need to surface something). I ended up making a straight shank one (because it was 10 times easier to do, and a fly cutter don't see that much force anyways).
I figure I just use the lathe but the guys I am borrowing the lathe from is a rather experienced machinist, and of course in their view I am just way too slow. So instead of letting me continue they just went and took over my project. They machined this: (I plan on finishing the work on my mill by cutting an angle, and milling in the slot for the tool bit, as well as the set screws)
If you notice, there is a roundover, don't know why they put that there (I would have been happy with a chamfer so I don't cut myself on it). The kicker is, they did this without a forming tool. The guy simply turned the wheels and made the roundover by hand. He did it without crashing the lathe too.
How do I learn how to do that, and how do I machine quickly enough without breaking something? I never used a 16x40 lathe before (only one I used was a 12x28) so naturally I work slow and take light cuts at slowish speed. The HSS blank I ground flat out sucked, and the carbide insert on his machines work 10 times better. He told me forget grinding HSS blanks and just go with inserts...
I felt like I'm the most incompetent machinist in the world right about now...
I figure I just use the lathe but the guys I am borrowing the lathe from is a rather experienced machinist, and of course in their view I am just way too slow. So instead of letting me continue they just went and took over my project. They machined this: (I plan on finishing the work on my mill by cutting an angle, and milling in the slot for the tool bit, as well as the set screws)
If you notice, there is a roundover, don't know why they put that there (I would have been happy with a chamfer so I don't cut myself on it). The kicker is, they did this without a forming tool. The guy simply turned the wheels and made the roundover by hand. He did it without crashing the lathe too.
How do I learn how to do that, and how do I machine quickly enough without breaking something? I never used a 16x40 lathe before (only one I used was a 12x28) so naturally I work slow and take light cuts at slowish speed. The HSS blank I ground flat out sucked, and the carbide insert on his machines work 10 times better. He told me forget grinding HSS blanks and just go with inserts...
I felt like I'm the most incompetent machinist in the world right about now...