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some oc

>>2944099
I got a question for machinists

Why is it that you guys can cut titanium to fractions of a human hair width with crazy amount of repeatability

But none of you guys seemed to make a marriage last?


How’s it feel knowing that you see a Burned in CRT screen on a machine control that’s going to be in a scrap yard after you die more than you see your children?

>>2944099
>Ignore Sieg
That's some good advice right there...

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Has anybody here tried out a desktop CNC machine like a DMC2 or Carvera? I know they're less than ideal for steel, but the idea of being able to fabricate metal parts in my garage is very appealing.

>>2944128
HAHAHA OMG HOLY SHIT WOW

THIS GUY REALLY HAS YOUR NUMBER LMFAO

AND THE WAY HE HITS ENTER TWICE AFTER WRITING ONE SENTENCE ON A LINE IS JUST THE ICING ON THE CAKE

HAHAHAHA WEW

>>2944326
>Has anybody here tried out a desktop CNC machine like a DMC2 or Carvera?

Not personally, but i was witness to people attempting to use them.

>I know they're less than ideal for steel

Won't keep you from buying one and trying it.

>but the idea of being able to fabricate metal parts in my garage is very appealing.

If you're fine with aluminium and it looking like a rodent chewed it out, sure, you can "fabricate" metal parts with that.

Now go buy one and be disappointed. Why did you even ask.

>>2945184
because he was hoping
you're right but there's no need to be prissy about it
adopting a more positive, less sarcastic outlook will fortify yourself as well

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>>2944326
Me being me, I'm waiting for those spark generators from rack robotics to get some reviews then I'm building a wire EDM. Safest machine to use as long as you don't touch anything.

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>>2944099
and the next contestant on How Bad Could It Possibly Be? is the $125 scamazon 10" chuck

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>>2945846
ranked by order of importance
>scroll fit on body hub 9.3/10
>lower jaw fit in body grooves 6.6/10
>top jaw fit on lowers 4.2/10
>scroll and gear finish 6.1/10
>component hardness 6.8/10
>pinion fit and finish 5.0/10
>burrs 4.2/10
>grit and dirt 3.8/10
>overall finish 5.9/10
>hardware 1.6/10
total scored 4.9
adjusted for chink expectations 6.5-7.0
the plastic scroll retainer isnt my favorite thing but really shouldnt see any load by design

>>2945850
>plastic scroll retainer
lmao

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has anyone dared to try this thing

How much does a brand new lathe and mill depreciate in value?

>>2945859
Only at least a few tens of thousands of people. There's reams of information on the 7x lathes out there.

I used to have one. It was okay. My biggest complaint was that the gib on the...either the cross slide or compound, I forget which, fit terribly in the dovetail. So badly that it allowed the tool to suddenly tip downward by like a full mm in a "heavy" cut. It was usable if you only ever took cuts light enough to avoid that problem, but that made things painfully slow (not to mention surface finish issues). Apparently that's not too uncommon a problem and I planned to fix it, but I scored a great deal on a 2000lb 14" lathe with fixable gearbox problems and sold the mini.

Would I buy again? Hate to admit it, but yes. Take that with a grain of salt, though. Now that I have other, much larger equipment, it's far easier for me to fix any problems it has than someone who's stuck with the mini as their only machine tool. Also, I bought my 7x14 when the more "premium" versions were like $800 including accessories. HF is currently selling the smaller 7x12 for that much and I can't even tell if that comes with a drill chuck for the tailstock.

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>>2945859

My work got this vevor lathe as an impulse buy and even as a cheap stuff enthusiast I think it was a mistake. I picked it up for free from them a bit ago and honestly will probably never use it for anything.

>>2945850
burs are easy to fix, dirt can be cleaned, even if they are annoying
i usually consider them unfinished hardware

>>2945912
yep sop. took about an hour to clean up. its my 5th chinkchuck so far. the best was a 6" i bought circa 2007. the jaws are glass hard and it clamps within .0015 across the full range
i have to murder another old chuck to cannibalize the d1-6 backplate before i get to assess the true functionality of this one

>>2944326
did you order 1 yet?

>>2945184

Nah fuck this guy, those cavers airs take some monster cuts… guy I know has a corn cob rougher on his, and a 14” 1” 3 flute finish mill to do tool steels a lot of horsepower and just uses 120v super worth it

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>>2945850
it only appears to be the 3rd chuck that has lived on this backplate

What's the best free offline CAD software?
Have done 2 gymnasium courses with Autodesk inventor and I'm doing one with solidworks right now, but since they're p2w i most likely won't be using them for hobby purposes.

>>2949378
freecad 1.0 is kinda good, and 1.1 is about to go out this month probably, and its supposed to get all the good stuff that couldnt make the cut of the 1.0

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Taking a community college machining class, made my first chips today. Looking forward to really getting into it next week.

>>2949972
I look back with fondness at the time in my life when that was me. Make some friends anon, don't stress too much and enjoy it.

>>2949997
Basically what I'm doing, this class is a side dish to a welding associate's so I can actually have fun with it - though honestly I find machining way more interesting and enjoyable than welding, and would probably switch majors to it, but the job prospects are a lot worse afaik.

The friends part is kinda iffy, I'm friendly with a few guys in my classes but they're mostly zoomers straight out of high school and I'm old enough that it wouldn't even be that weird for me to be their dad. My teachers are more like people I'd hang with though, and weirdly my welding instructor is a girl a year younger than me and totally my type which is pretty awkward, it's a lot of work holding myself back from hitting on her.

Picked up a sherline 4400 lathe and the matching mill, along with a lot of tooling, for very little. The previous owner used them for rc cars and steam engine models.

I don't have a real use for it but the price was too good to pass up and it seemed fun. Other than being tiny they seem very highly regarded. For what I paid they're cool conversation pieces of nothing else.

Does anyone have a good idea for some starter projects? I have pretty much all the accessories other than cnc parts, the rotary table, and the threading tool. I will probably buy the threading tool since honestly using a micro lathe as a threader seems pretty useful and setup seems easy.

So far the only practical thing I've done is face some rough cut aluminum and brass rounds. I make challenge coins on a fiber laser and its hard to find decent quality brass blanks nowadays that aren't 1.5" or smaller. However this lathe doesn't have the oomph to part something that thick easily so I use a bandsaw.

I do have a onefinity I use for aluminum and brass sometimes but no real manual machining experience other than wood.

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>>2944099
why the fuck is it "machinery's handbook" and not "machinist's handbook" or "machinery handbook."

>>2950549
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdaXdSvKHzk

>>2950579
that's interesting.

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if i bought two alibaba sliding tables and bolted them to an L shaped pipe frame, would that be a viable mill ?

>>2950633
You would need something with a good spindle able to take side loading and an acceptable range of spindle speeds...

Might make for a fun little surface grinder though... Bolt an angle grinder or regular motor with grinding wheel to it. Throw a cheap may chuck on there and start throwing steel at mach 2.

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>>2950633
L-shaped wouldn't have the rigidity to mill much, but you might be able to get somewhere if you triangulate out the column kinda like pic related (super rough mockup)

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>>2944326
>DMC2
You can do steel with dmc2, because it's frame is steel. I have a genmitsu 3030 prover max with a 110V 1.5KW ER11 spindle and it can do steel, even with it's anemic stock spindle and aluminum plates. Rigidity is key for steel.

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>>2945859
>>2945867
don't bother with these Chinese toys.

get a PW lathe. yes it's expensive. but they are worth it. they are actual lathes not toys for wood/plastic

>>2950817
Those are basically the same chinese toys everyone else sells. Ordered to a higher spec and then gone through and the fit and finish is polished up and everything checked over real well.

>>2950817
Of course those are the bigger chinese lathes rather than the mini lathe. But Jet, Grizzly, and Enco and a few others are good options for those sizes as well.

>>2944099
would this be wacky? getting two cheapo 10lb weight plates, true the edges on both of them on my home lathe and then put a radius on either side of each plates corner so the two plates can come together and form a tube bending die. i probably wont do it

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People seem to think it's a small lathe meaning you can make small parts. I often use the biggest lathe at work for the smallest parts because it provides greater rigidity, stability, and control. You get none of that in these small import lathes unless you pay for it. PM seems to be the only real option for import benchtop lathes that I've found.

FWIW, if you live in the US just find a south bend 9 in lathe and throw it in the back of a uhual truck, you can find them for the same price as these toy lathes.

I guess it ultimately boils down to what you want to do.
>Do you want a project lathe to finish, that still might be garbage?
OR
>Do you want to use a lathe to make parts?

>>2950844
>They are basically the same
>Except they are completely different
wat

>>2950846
The vevor one, grey m100 is 8.7" x 29.5" for $1500 USD.
The orange one isn't even worth mentioning imo.
The lowest cost PM is 10"x22" and is similar size to the vevor but significantly different.

>But Jet, Grizzly, and Enco and a few others are good options for those sizes as well.
A lot of them have the same problems. They still need some work unless you're getting a non-bench lathe. The PM is the only one I've ever seen that just works with promised accuracy out of the box. I've went down this route 4 times with bench lathes for work, a cheap Chinese lathe, a cheap Taiwan lathe, a Grizzly, and a Sherline. I spent more money on each lathe than the cost of a fully kitted PM 10"x22" + tooling to have comparable machines. Yes I was able to sell the "upgraded" machines and get most of the shops money back but trust me buying the PM 10"x22" was worth every penny. If I could go back I'd have bought the PM and never messed with the others. If you could get the same dimensional accuracy as the PM with medium or minimal effort, I would argue to get the cheap options every time. It's just not worth it for how much work is required.

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so I already have some plates. I got my idea cause I used a plate to make a bending die for square tube. for a round die I think im gonna use 5lb plates because they are only 7.25" diameter and thats a good radius for the round tubes I want. I think i will make a mandrel these will fit on and then turn them both at the same time. I would like for one edge be 1/2 for 1" tube and it would be nice for the other side to work with 7/8. Im trying to think how i will make the bending side, maybe get another larger piece of tube with a thick wall that 1" tube will fit into and then cut it in half.

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>>2950814
>only $2500
convince me not to run a DMC2 mini in an apartment.
if I get some sound proofing foam the noise shouldn't be too bad

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>>2950971
>convince me not to run a DMC2 mini in an apartment.
No. DMC2 is legit a good machine. Fuck your neighbors. You can probably get away with using it there.

>if I get some sound proofing foam the noise shouldn't be too bad
Take the box it comes in, picrel, and add foam.
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxa8HH3t_Ds

>295096nein
>295097won
>295100too
go shill your trash toy elsewhere

someone's cranky

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im going to use a 2" pipe nipple for the mandrel probably a cap too for the center to get on. Ill open these center holes to 2.25 and then turn the pipe down to fit. im trying to keep this low cost and im trying to think of something menards would sell thats big enough i can use as a bushing. maybe bearings from amazon.

>>2951058
for the clamp die I have some 2" wide 3/16 lengths and I will stack a bunch together, weld the sides and cut the middle out with whatever size hole saw and then cut that in half. for the wiper I might do the same

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>>2950846
Man, I can't speak for the others, but IDK about Jet. My school has four brand new ones, my class is the first to ever use them. (Along with one other period of the same class.) One of those four machines is already broken down with some kind of electrical problem. "My" machine has more backlash than you'd hope for in a brand new machine despite all the controls being a little stiff, and seems less rigid than it ought to be, plus the fancy-looking DRO isn't that reliable either. It's not just me saying that either, the instructors seem pretty underwhelmed too. They're an improvement over the completely clapped out WW2-era machines they replaced but pretty shit for a machine you or I would pay almost 20k for.

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to make the bushing I will modify two caps, turning them down and center drilling them. since they have such a big OD I decided to not bother turning the pipes diameter, only to just get it straight. I haven't cut a radius on a lathe and im wondering how I should cut a hhs bit. I only have 3/8 hhs so I was thinking about making a left right and middle profile or welding like 3 togther. im not sure.

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like this was an idea where I would take 3 hhs blanks (I have a lot), tig them together, and then trace and cut out my radius and then trim down to the holder, my 3/8th lantern style holder

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Im gonna give this a go. why not

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>>2951242
>form tool over 1" wide
>with a reduced shank
>on a lantern toolpost
>on a lathe that small

My lathe is significantly bigger and it still wouldn't much like to be putting that thing into anything harder than plastic.

>>2951215
>>2951242
>>2951247

Yeah that's gonna chatter like a motherfawker... At least use it as a guide to cut out the majority of it with a cut-off tool or other standard lathe bit before even trying to plunge that in there.

>>2951077
>almost 20k
Lol. Yeah they overpaid for that shit. Grizzly is 8600 for the same basic thing. Precision Matthews is 10k. Probably some "college education government discount" bullshit where they jack the price up 2x so someone's cousin can pocket some money.

>>2951250
The school paid less (about 16k with DRO and a service contract - apparently a pretty shit one since they still haven't come and fixed it 3 weeks later - etc.). $20k is about what the same lathe lists for with similar options for a normal buyer.

On that note, there's also some fucked runout in the chucks, but idk if that's down to the school's install or the lathe itself. One of the other students was having some kind of issue so they got out an indicator and there was a couple of thou in the chuck that was turning into like 5 thou at the end of the workpiece. Not sure the numbers on mine but I'm getting a weird taper and broke two center drills (which probably fucked my part, but I can remake that fast if they'll let me send it with the cut depth), and watching them it sure as hell looked like it wasn't lining up concentric like it should have been.

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>>2951247
Yeah i cant cut it. The lathe is too small, the cutter is too big, the hardness got runied, and the carriage runs into the plate. Sometime I will get an amazon carbide assortment and retry it

i enrolled in college for a 2 yr machining program and got accepted into a tool and die RAP. we're building an injection mold die and testing it out in class. really satisfies my 'tism

>>2952483
Machining isn’t difficult it’s meant to literally children to manufacture products in a overhead belt driven machine factory with wood floors and no fire escapes

Go to school for something cooler like nursing or electrical engineering

>>2951247
Have yountried giving it blue chew? Heard that makes it more ridgid

>>2944099
Why do machinists brag about being able to program or know cad? Are there really that many button pushers in this industry to where that’s all that is needed to be impressive?

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Does anyone have experience with watchmakers lathes? My main interest is making small models and projects. tiny engine, pens, watch/clockwork, jewellery, ect. All the videos i see make them look incredibly satisfying to work with. Im just not sure if this is a bad way to get my foot in the door with machining.

>>2953502
I have one that I got on a pallet of junk at an auction. It's in a trailer with some other stuff I'm probably going to sell, but your post gave me an idea that I could probably adapt a drill chuck to it, and use a die grinder or rotary shaft grinder on the toolpost and make a pin/punch grinder out of it...

>>2951256
Seems to me the student's didn't clean the spindle nose/chuck mount when changing chuck's.
What kind of mounting system is on there?

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Currently working on some bushes made from this stuff, some kind of composite material about which i couln't find much information. It's called tribo top

just got a job at an auto machine shop
now make the same amount i made at the grocery store lol

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I would like to recreate Cristofle cutlery for my wife. Unfortunately they only come in silver coated, so even if i had too much money, they're unusable for me.
So my idea was to diy. 3d print a hull that keeps blank stainless cutlery in place, engrave and repeat.
My makerspace has proudly acquired a makera, would that be powerful enough for this kind of engraving work? I've read quite a few negative experiences regarding round shapes and keeping the spindle on track without breaking end mills in the process.
If that all works, do i need to add renew finishes or is stainless steel cutlery really "just" stainless steel? If it isn't the later, can one even do the necessary processes at home?
Last but not least, am i completely off and should look into laser engravers?
My experience with metal so far is basically just ordering sheet metal, so please bear with me.

>>2953551
I think it's a camlock. As far as I know no student has ever changed the chuck, these have only been in use by students for a few weeks and our class has never fucked with them but I don't know what the other one is up to, they've been way harder on the machines than us in general and there are some suspicious scratches that appeared on one of the ways under the chuck between times I used the machine so who knows. They're also unpronounceable Chinese mystery meat chucks though so they might just be shit.

>>2953612
You probably know more about random useless bullshit now too

Which letters of tungsten carbide inserts does a 987654321 kennametal boring bar take and got hrc 42069 hardened tool steel feeds and speeds

Highest stress fucking job for minimum fucking wage

>>2953773
nah i havent touched any machines yet im just knocking out freeze plugs. throwing shit in the parts washer, and dollying engine blocks around the whole building because the lift cargo lift is broken

Machining class anon here

I have a really hard time not saying "Sneed" whenever we talk about feeds & speeds or chucks.