Re: Recommendations for learning the basics
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hats off to a great post!!! obviously as indicated through the volume of responses. ? ?Hopefully Rudy Kouhoupt has already been mentioned,?He was a great author and teacher, one?of the first through the use videos i believe. He owned and used a SL in some of his videos?if I remember correctly.? If your ultimate goal is to learn manual machining/ basic lathe work, don't waste your time going through the lens?of the Unimat platform. They are TOYS. The learning they do offer comes from the knowledge shared in forums like this, which is usually? about getting past their?shortcomings, all of which?are based in the origins of Karl Maier's design. Full disclosure: I own four or more cast DB's... but if you scored a sweet one ( all original ) ?shelve it, or sell it to suckers like us. snag up a whipped or better SouthBend 9" with the proceeds... Rudy's Basic & advanced Videos are done on one.? Score a copy of J. Randolph Bulgin "the engine lathe for the beginner" also done on a SB 9. Guy Lautard is back in action? Precisionmeasure.com? Machine shop secrets. a great video? ClickSpring comes from a clockers makers background ... enough said? and blondes do have more fun.
cheers,? Nate ??
On Sun, May 12, 2024 at 2:16?PM Charles Kinzer via <ckinzer= [email protected]> wrote: Something important to learn is how to grind tool bits.? The usual way is by using a bench grinder.? A 6 inch bench grinder would be adequate and can be obtained for a pretty low cost.? There ARE more sophisticated machines made for grinding tool bits, but you really don't need anything like that.? Also, usually you don't want a grinder located too close to the lathe because grinding dust isn't good for machines.
"Back in the day" it was common for the first section of a machine shop class to be about tool bit grinding.? The various angles needed.? "Rake" and "Clearance".? Differences for difference materials and different surface finish and such.? You can't get good results with poorly formed tool bits.
You will also run across "inserts" which is a scheme where there is a holder, and you buy little (real little for a Unimat) pre-made tool inserts that mount in the holder.? I recommend just using HSS (High Speed Steel) tool bits in a small machine like this.? You may also run across pre-ground "carbide" tools and in my experience the hobby ones come from China and are junk.
It looks like a lot of tool bits came with the lathe.? I would assume it is likely they were done with some competence, and many can serve as examples.? But like all lathe training, tutorials exist for tool bit geometry.? And information there is translatable to other metal cutting tools from milling cutters to drills.
Somewhat related is the creation of chips.? You can end up getting long stringy chips.? These are a safety hazard even on a small machine.? You can get a finger tangled up and sometimes the long string suddenly wraps itself around the rotating parts dragging in, perhaps, a finger.? In some machine shops, it is a firing offense to produce long stringy chips because, especially with larger machines, it can be so dangerous.? So, there are things like "chip breakers" that can be ground into tool bits if needed.? Anyway, I have seen some brag about how long of a chip they can make.? That's amateurish and a very bad practice.
Charles E. "Chuck" Kinzer
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