Lathe

[LightSourceBlue]

I haven't had any experience with a lathe before, but after seeing a few posts from members here showing what they had some with theirs I did a bit of research and decided to try one. Will start our with doing a heatsink and then eventually might tackle doing a host. I have a Bambu X1C which is great for doing stuff with plastic but I really want to be doing more with metals - so feel like this is a good starting point.

I was fairly limited by space and weight requirement, I don't have a workbench so I needed to find an option which was small enough to fit in a cupboard and light enough to pick up and out away. This one is 12kg weight and length wise will just fit in the cupboard I need to store it on, chose the 80mm chuck option so feel like that will give me the most flexibility.




Any tips on working with a lathe like this? What am I realistically going to be able to do with this? Thinking of working with mostly softer copper and aluminium. The seller told me it can do all of this, but I'm still skeptical how well!

 

[GSS]

There are a bunch of Utube lathe learning video's. Find the right one as alot are better than others.

Copper might be soft but it can be a handful to machine. It gets hot and gummy. If your using high speed cutting steel to machine it you will probably have to sharpen the cutting steel a few times. If your using a Carbide tip tool you will just need to machine slowly like usual.

Brass machines very easy and free. Aluminum is decent to machine but can be abrasive.
How much is that lathe you posted?
I'm sure it comes with some tooling but you will most likely need to get more which adds up money wise.

Also never run a lathe if you have long hair, if you have long hair tie it behind your neck with a band.
Think what will happen if long hair gets caught in the spindle while its spinning at 2500 rpms

 

[LightSourceBlue]

Good to know re copper, I wasn't aware of that! I suspect I'll end up mostly working with aluminium, and copper and steel now and then.

It cost about US$275 (local domestic market in China), but would probably sell in the US for a little more - probably another $100 on top of that if it were selling on Aliexpress or Amazon.

It does come with some tooling, but not sure exactly what it does - was going to wait till it arrives to see if I need to get anything else. Didn't seem like it comes with a lot.

My preference would have been to get something like the Vevor 7"x14" (workspace) which would have cost just a bit more, but the size and weight just wouldn't work in my space unfortunately!

 

[GSS]

For what you need it should be fine..
There are easier machining copper styles but with prices being so high lately I would stick with AL like you said.
You can get a tap & die at your local Ace Hardware plus the set screws to hold the 12 modules in place.

You should pick it up in time..

 

[LightSourceBlue]

My lathe arrived a few days ago, looks like I got these two insert holders / inserts. I'm thinking about getting carbide inserts so I don't have to worry about sharpening, does that sound like a good idea and will work?

Any suggestions on what to use as initial insert holders, or these two good enough for now?

 

[CurtisOliver]

As long as you don’t apply too much lateral force to the tip. I highly recommend carbide tips. I have a carbide parting tool and a tool steel facing tool at work. Resharpening all those faces for a facing tool is a pain sometimes. And I’m definitely looking to add carbide facing tools to the order list.

 

[LightSourceBlue]

As long as you don’t apply too much lateral force to the tip. I highly recommend carbide tips. I have a carbide parting tool and a tool steel facing tool at work. Resharpening all those faces for a facing tool is a pain sometimes. And I’m definitely looking to add carbide facing tools to the order list.

Yeah assuming I'm being careful with the carbide inserts they should like a much quicker / less painful approach. I'd rather spend a bit more on them and save time on not needing to sharpen.

There are a lot of insert options, so trying to navigate the ins and out and which ones to use

 

[Ricker]

Might need to shim the tooling to make it even with center as well

 

[LightSourceBlue]

Might need to shim the tooling to make it even with center as well

In was wondering about this, I have seen this in a lot of videos I believe. How and when is the best time to do this? Is it basically measurements the tolerance/variance from a certain point?

When trying my first use of the lathe (with copper, I know not the best to start with - but it's the only one I got that didn't need to be cut first!), it did feel not fully aligned and cutting smoothly - but I thought it might be due to it being copper and the insert maybe not being suitable.