Maybe a little OT but about Lathes

[Keith L]

I agree with Slufoot.  Be very careful, and have a ball!

[handirifle]

I can see a number of ways one could get hurt with this beast, and I will be carefull.  Once I have a clue, I think I'll start having fun.  Still need to get the cutting tools and chuck.  Hope they sell tools ready made, at least to start.

Tim,
I made SOME headway the otherday.  I actually took out the aluminum base from under the rear brass ring, and drilled and tapped the sides of the ring itself.  It seems to work, and it surely takes care of the elevation issues I had before.  As in not being able shhot less than 16" high at 50yds .  It drops the scope down low enough to hit the hammer, which is too low really.

The only concern I have is insuring both sides come up evenly which they pretty well did before, but there was more play for me to deal with.  I have it working pretty well right now, but I'll see how it stands up.

I hope to get out to the range this week sometime and give it another go.  Been casting some of my own to compare with the Chey-Cast loads.  Aslo got some Starline brass to load as well.

Just finished helping put Christmas back in the shed, except for the house lights.  Will wait till the wind stops before I get on that ladder.  Winds here 2 days ago were well over 60 MPH and the mountain tops recorded 102MPH winds.  I don't think any load would work too well in those conditions.

[quickdtoo]

Glad to hear you're making some progress with the mounts. Sorry to hear about the wind, evidently we're sharing some of the same kind of weather, got any snow lately?? We've had snow showers for the last two days off and on, nothing sticking yet, but if it gets just a tad colder, we'll be in for it.

Tim

[handirifle]

Not much snow at my elevation (2500) but the mountains around me go to 8000+ and we've had about 3 days of seperate storms up there.  Most of it goes away quickly, but the ski resorts are running full bore.  My two eldest went snowboarding a few days ago.

Right now it's about 36 deg outside and about 30-40mph winds.  Tomorrow may be a write off too.

[quickdtoo]

You may have seen this already, but here's another mini-lathe link Handi!

Tim

http://www.varmintal.com/alath.htm

[Les Brooks]

Hey Handi

I have owned several large lathes and am not trying to impress  you , but these small lathes can be used for several jobs.  Look at the site mentioned above by  Al.

After I retired I bought a 7X10 HF to see what could be done on these little machines.  I was impressed for this lathe.   I have used this machine to thread a metric barrel and cut the chamber.   This required a chuck which I made to insert the barrel deep into the spindle.  The threading needs to be done using a hand crank to turn the spindle because the motor doesn't have enough power to do threading.  Look for info on this crank doing a search on the web for the mini lathe sites.

I sold this HF and bought the 7X12 Grizz.  This was a much better machine because of the extra length.  I have used this machine to thread and chamber 3 rifles for myself.  I will send pictures of the setup if you would like to PM me.  I know most guys will bad mouth us for using these little machine, but remember they can be used for a hobby.

[handirifle]

Thanks Quick for the link.

Les, I think the Griz is most likely a better machince but there's no dealer local ( that I know of) and there is for the HF.  Anyway I ended up getting a 7 x 12 based on reccomendations of those here.  I just got back from a trip and havent set it up yet.  I picked up a stand today and ordered a heavy duty chuck and some cutting tools, starter drills and a couple other things.

I got it all from the littlemachineshop.com.

I still need to get a complete set of drills and a grinder.  Been needing a grinder for a long time anyway.

Harbor Freight has a Cobalt set of drills, are theirs as good as anyone elses?  Or is there a better set I should look at.

[Awf Hand]

I'd wager that Harry Pope had a much poorer lathe to work with than Harbor Freight is currently selling.

I started out "just wanting to do a few small projects" on a lathe.  I cut, stubbed, threaded and rebarrelled an NEF Handi-rifle into a .32-40 target gun a few months later.

There are many addictions out there.  Some diminish the intellect while emptying the wallet.  Others fill the intellect (and the garage) while doing the same to the wallet.

Why don't you post some pictures of your projects once you get started.


Most importantly:
Work safe and work smart.  The tool doesn't distinguish between meat or metal.

[WILDCATT]

you could have got swegding dies for less and do good job.get ENCOs cat the tool prices are good and you will need measuring tools the cheap ones work.I dont know if a wtwholesale is near you.I use the harbor tool mini cut off saw to cut reformed brass.please be careful as you can get hurt if your not.and look up night classes.