Rocket Machine Shop

(that I'm still dreaming about)

Current (whatever that means on the web)

April 2007 update: I am very close to making my purchases.

Here's the Rocket Machine Shop purchase list for the initial equipment + tooling I'm working on.

How to run a lathe

Threading - 3A fit

Boneyard (but useful)


Following is some older material:

The Virtual Machine Shop is a nice online reference.

Lathemaster   - 7x14, 9x30, and milling machines www.lathemaster.com

I'm leaning now more towards a Grizzly G4003 as I hear that for some reason everything gets better at 10" and larger in lathes.
I guess they push the little ones up to 9" or so and that's all they can take. The G4003 is double the price of the otherwise
nice Lathemaster 9x30, but is also double the weight, has quick change gear box, cam lock chuck, etc.

Bill Shamblin - Grizzly G-9729

Smithy Meetal Working Tools (Look nice, but pricey!)

ShopTask Shopmaster Eldorado http://www.shoptask.com/

Little Machine Shop also has a nice users manual.

Also http://www.technicalvideorental.com has metalworking dvds to rent

Not a bad site: http://www.varmintal.com/alath.htm

and the yahoo groups are good for asking questions:

Actually, there are more than I thought. If you search on "lathe" from groups.yahoo.com you'll find a bunch. Thereis mini-lathe for the chinese mini's, also one more specific to lathemaster (including this the taig milling machine), one's specific to CNCing small lathes, etc.

It was from one of those that I read about having to use the short bits and tools in the 7x10 and I think 7x14 pretty much minimum for more normal tooling.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/lathemaster/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mini-lathe/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/7x24Mini-LatheCNC/

Lathe Projects - Kinzers; mods, grinding, etc. Nice.


Marv's nice software and resources page.




Mills

http://www.industrialhobbies.com/ Also has CNC. Also has bench plans an other resources.
http://www.lathemaster.com - seig and another mill This is the X-3 and they have a non Sieg larger one.

CNC Conversions

The more I look the sweeter it'd be to have cnc for a mini-mill (like one of the ones at http://www.lathemaster.com) . I can't quite see it myself for a lathe, but maybe I'm missing that as yet. but for a mill ... seems like it'd be sweet.

http://www.cnczone.com/

http://www.lowcostcncretrofits.com/

http://www.industrialhobbies.com/

http://www.jeffree.co.uk/Pages/x3-to-cnc.html and related arceurotrade.com


Supplies

Metals Supplies

http://www.onlinemetals.com/
http://www.industrialmetalsales.com/

Tubing Supplies

Ed R was telling me Allan W knew of a couple of surplus places you could get cuts / end cuts and if you wanted they'd trim up and nicely finish off the end.  I'll look into this.

Plastics

U.S. Plastic Corporation.

Graphite supplies

Aerocon
Others (People seem secretive about their surplus graphite suppliers)

Snap Rings, Spiral Retainers

Parts, Tools, etc

MSC Industrial Supply
Harbor Freight
Grizzly
Little Machine Ship.

Errata


-----Original Message-----
...
A friend got a mini lathe from here:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=33684
Harbor Freight is local in Raleigh and often has coupons for a
percentage off anything in the store -- a good deal if you want this
brand.  I haven't asked him about the ability to use standard bits, but
I will.

I've also looked at
http://www.cumminstools.com/browse.cfm/4,876.htm

and at the comparison chart on:
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/Info/minilathe_compare.php

And, of course, I assume you've seen http://www.mini-lathe.com/

>     Which site for modular lathe were you looking at?

The Taig Lathe at http://www.cartertools.com/

AFAICT, they have a lot of add-on kits that get you into CNC for
incremental costs (which may not actually be less than just buying CNC
up front).

Arc Euro Trade Ltd has some nice links, pics, CNC X3 conversion, etc.