Look what I've got - a new miniature lathe!

[Lane]

[mangozac]

[Lane]

Not really, the cross slide mounted vertical on the carriage is only 3 axis of movement, standard for a mill. Rotating the angle plate is the same as tilting the head.

My larger mill (still only mid size) has a tilting head though I wish it also had the "Nod" feature as well. My smaller mill, the one I'll eventually convert to CNC has a tilting column but that is of limited use.

[mangozac]

Well the Taig parts arrived today - very fast friendly service! They seem to be very well made.

The first thing I discovered is that the T-slot nuts are incompatible with the Sherline machine - they are slightly too wide. Oh well that's no drama - I'll probably just grind them down to fit. The next problem (one that I was aware of but didn't properly take into account) is the distance from the top of the cross slide to the spindle center. It's about 0.25" more on the Taig, so with the Taig accessories the cutting tool sits too high (and the base of the ball turner won't clear the material). Not sure what to do here. I'll take some pics when I get a chance.

[mangozac]

My ER11 collets (and MT1 chuck) arrived today! I bought them online from and spent the last week wondering if I would ever see them. Other than an order confirmation I received not one bit of further correspondence - even following two separate emails I sent asking what was going on! I was about to open a complaint with Paypal when suddenly the post lady arrived with a box from Hong Kong for me this morning!

The collets and chuck seem very acceptable quality - the collets are 1 to 7mm in 0.5mm increments (13 in total). Perfectly finished and well packaged. I'll just have to get a little box to store them in. The price was very good - I paid about AU$56 for the whole lot delivered!

Can't wait to try them out tonight!

[Hatemonger]

[mangozac]

Well tonight I finished (well not quite, more on that later) my ER11 collet system for my lathe. After cleaning everything up I decided I might snap some pics to show everyone exactly what I've been ranting about these last couple of pages

First up I've got a picture of the lathe as it sits on my desk. I had just cleaned up after cutting down the drawbar hand wheel so there is no cutter mounted in the tool holder. Additionally you can see my shiny new collet chuck and drawbar mounted instead of the normal chuck:

OK so normally it turning anything with a decent diameter (greater than say 3mm) we use the normal 3-Jaw chuck, as seen in the next photo. It's really quick and easy to use but as I said has size limitations: anything less than 2mm diameter it simply can't hold properly. It's important that the lathe is able to hold the material perfectly centred for machining. The shaft that the chuck is mounted on is hollow all of the way through, so you can stick really long bits of material in there and they just protrude out the other end of the headstock.

In order to machine very small diameter material (down to 0.5mm styrene rod) I bought an ER11 collet set and an ER11 Morse Taper #1 (MT1) collet chuck. This mounts onto the lathe in place of the standard 3-jaw chuck (as seen in pic 1). I chose the ER11 collet size because the same size is used on my new CNC router. The collets themselves can only hold a piece of material within about 0.5mm of the collet's rated diameter, so you need a full set to cover all sizes. I got a set from 0.5 to 7mm in 0.5mm increments.

Here's a picture of the collet chuck holding some 2mm styrene rod:

The collet chuck is tapered to that it fits into the headstock spindle, however there's nothing to really hold it in place. What is required for this is a drawbar: simply a threaded rod which screws into the back of the collet chuck and locks it in place. I elected to make a drawbar from an M6 by 100mm long steel bolt. I sawed off the bolt head and then tapped about 6mm of thread onto that end so that I could thread on a handwheel for tightening. The handwheel I had a friend machine out of steel (because he has a knurling attachment to finish it off with) and which I then did final machining of the surface which contacts the spindle on this lathe. The poor little lathe didn't like cutting steel but she soldiered on and I got there in the end.

Man it made a mess! I don't recommend machining steel on the hobby desk in your bedroom. I had to get the vacuum cleaner out afterwards to clean up...

Here's a breakdown of the collet system parts for the lathe. Starting top left and working clockwise we have:
- Collet chuck
- Collet
- Collet nut
- Drawbar
- Drawbar handwheel

Already I've been machining styrene rod as small as 1mm diameter and the collet chuck system works perfectly. In all I'm very happy with it!

Oh the reason I said that it's not quite finished is that I need to drill a hold down the centre of the drawbar so that material can extend out the back of the headstock like when using a normal chuck. I can use this lathe to do that (but I'll be sure to take it into the garage for more metal machining!).

Next trick will be to make a radius turning tool (since the Taig one I bought has no chance of fitting on the Sherline machine) and vertical slide.

[mangozac]

I just finished another attachment for the lathe and wanted to share: a sanding disc attachment.

It's just a disc cut from 6mm thick perspex which I've mounted to an aluminium cylinder (that gets held in the chuck). The cylinder had a 4mm hole tapped into it so that I could use a countersunk screw to join them. The disc is 75mm in diameter because apparently that is supposed to be a standard disc size, but for the time being I have just glued a circle of normal wet and dry to it that I cut out with a knife.

Future plans:
- Stick on (velcro?) sanding pad adjustment system so that I can change grits on the fly (currently using 240 grit).
- Perpendicular guides and clamping system to mount to the cross slide for precise sanding

And then one day I'll eventually get around to doing that radius turning tool. Although at this point it may be quicker and easier to just buy a Sherline one...