Bits for home-made lathe

Greetings,

I have a home-made lathe, wihch I actually acquired from someone else. I think they'd taken it as far as they were going to, and I want to continue to make it better, as I just can't afford a good lathe, and if I can get some use out of this one, then I've got time to save up a bit for a better one

It's got a 750w circular saw motor, and a 4" pratt burnerd 3-jaw chuck, which has mismatched jaws, so they don't meet together in the middle properly (there's one stamped with a one, and two stamped with a two), but if you shim the workpiece up with some cardboard, you can get it to spin straightish The faceplate that it bolts to has been welded to the shaft, so I'm kind of stuck with that chuck or one the same size.

the tailstock and tool post move backwards using threaded bar, and the tool post in particular wobbles up and down like a boat in choppy waters as you wind it in, so it's all but useless really. My idea at the moment is to get some kind of cross-slide from a proper metal lathe and lash up something that I can use to get smooth movement, as the bed on this lathe is about as far from smooth as one can get. I obviously need to try and sort the chuck out too.

So, what I'm after really, is some help building up my chuck. Has anyone got any old cross-slides/chucks or tool posts that they can get rid of cheaply?

Thanks for any consideration

youd be better off getting something like this
DRUMMOND FLAT BED LATHE | eBay and doing it up though for £400 you can get something quite nice

Buy a colchester or if you're feeling flush a dean smith and grace


I'm saving up for a medium sized colchester to dump in the garage

BTW. I'm not feeling flush, or I wouldn't be messing around with this lump of carp At least with this, I can try and build something up incrementally!

I'll get something better when finances allow

theres a small sized lathe near me, not big enough for what I want but may be for you ?

he says £325 no offers but its been for sale for about 5 weeks now and not sold so go figure its a proper mechanical one not belts IIRC and lever clutch instead

Cheers for the thought, but it's more money than I've got in the bank, and it's only the 3rd of the month LOL!

Hence why I'm trying to do things on the cheap and nasty

Need to get selling some more stuff on fleabay I think!

That Drummond is just a few miles from me jamesmartin

haha fair enough, check ebay for chuck bits if you need them theres a few jaws up here too

Tool posts you may be able to get a cheap clarke one and mod it to fit ?

you're following my sort of thinking Dr_evil.

I think I'm going to make a better bed for it too. You can't tell from the photo, but the bed has been 'smoothed' with an angle grinder hahaha. I've got a couple of nice heavy lengths of angle steel which could do a better job!

grinder ?

id have thought you might spend more getting that something like than the ebay example

This is the one I was on about anyway


Smart and Brown L4 Lever Operated Collet Lathe | eBay

Dr_evil said:

Buy a colchester or if you're feeling flush a dean smith and grace


I'm saving up for a medium sized colchester to dump in the garage

Click to expand...

my dsg well it was I gave it to my father when I went cnc, but now regret it

feck thats huge


theres a massive russian lathe on ebay atm for £600, no ones bid on it yet

Dr_evil said:

feck thats huge


theres a massive russian lathe on ebay atm for £600, no ones bid on it yet

Click to expand...

link please

Oooh wasn't £600, that was the colchester student I was looking at


its only £250 but still that chuck looks massive on it, I'd be putting bids on if I had 3phase at home


STANKO metal lathe | eBay

thanks

You gonna have a pop at it then ?

i got a couple of chucks here, that i dont want

Took me a little while to figure out where you were it's quite a trip from glevumshire! Would you be able to post? Have you got one similar in size to mine and that could be bolted to my 4" faceplate? Although I guess I could always sort an intermediate faceplate out if necessary

yu might have to ask Chunkymunkey - they belong to him