[Hobbiest]

Has anybody here built a metal lathe? I just got a job in a fabrication, and machine shop, and need to practice my arc welding, so I was thinking that building one out of some nice heavy plate would be a good way to practice, and keep me motivated! 3/4" or 1" plate would be used for the headstock and tailstock main assemblies, as well as the slide and cross slide for the machine. Adjustable brass gibbs, and brass wear pads on hand scraped steel ways. I will probably build up the slide assemblies out of a combination of plate stock and bar stock, bolted together with 1/4" or bigger bolts. Thinking to build the whole frame out of steel tubing, filled with sand for weight and vibration damping. I have the book, Build a Metal Lathe by D. Gingery, and have a small foundry, but would rather build it out of steel for the rigidity. Any ideas? Hardest part to think of, is the headstock spindle and bearings. I was thinking about two rear axle tube ends, with the stock bearings and modified axle shaft bored to have a thru hole. Axles are extremely hard though, and boring them will be difficult. The wheel flange would make a good mount for a chuck, but perhaps it is a better idea to build it out of solid round stock, and then attatch the face plate. Other question is the stability of rear axle bearings, and whether or not they would have way too much play. I have a motor (2 !/2 hp) and speed controller out of a working treadmill, but it is driven by a grooved belt, and I don't know if slippage would be a problem. Thinking about starting this week. Other suggestions would be way material. I want the ways to be fairly wide, and would like to use hex stock set parralel, but I can't think of an efficient way to true them. Might be able to get the boss to show me how to use the mill this week, but that might be pushing it a little. Hu...what do you think? Ballendo? Does anybody know of a free file converter that I can use to convert my CAD drawings to JPEG? I use turboCAD 2d, and Rhino3D.

[balsaman]

Open the cad file, hit the print screen button, open a photo editing software, open a new file, click edit, paste, crop off the parts you don't like, and save as jpg.

E

[Hobbiest]

I'll give it a try Eric, thanks!