Stirlingengineforum.com

Hi, what sort of tooling are you using? Carbide or HSS, use the correct speed,feed, and depth of cut, and you should have little trouble. Most of the work is easiest done with HSS tools, and with a little lathe, take things quietly, and sharpen the tools as sharp as you can. If you have carbide tools you need a green grit wheel for your grinder, and a daimond lap is the thing to polish the edge, but although they supply these tools for these mini lathes, they are not really powerful enough, or ridgid enough to do the tools justice. There are web sites for mini lathe users, could be a help. I'v heard of them fitting new roller bearings on the mandrel, and having to redo the gib strips. Bet I'v got a smaller lathe than yours, my other lathe is a Super Adept, 1 5/8" center hight, 6" between centers. Its handy every now and then for little jobs, and you need to be able to sharpen the tool if you want to get anywhere. Ian S C

Oh, the mini-lathe I am using is a 12" long 5" unit from harbor freight, and I have made some modifications per many fan websites. I have bought 2 chucks for it, one a 4-jaw adjustable 5", the other a 3-jaw 5" centered chuck. I have begun to switch to HSS steel tooling, but most of the blunting is my fault for allowing play in the bed, gibs, feed, and about everything else. Like I said, I am still learning, but with lots of interruptions. I only recently learned the drive feed is reversible, and can be locked so that horizontal cuts stay fixed and true. I have been on and off the thing erradically throughout the year. After finding out how loose everything was, I was amazed at how I even turned out the parts of the crankshaft as well as I did. The sharp carbide tooling helped, until vibration and overcutting took the edge off. A cutting tool wet grinder would be nice, but my budget won't allow it, yet. The lathe is ready to run again, so we'll see what I can do now.

You need the green grit wheel for touching up the carbide tips. Chatter/ vibration is one thing that kills the tips, also if you dig in and stall the lathe you can break off the end of the tool, I think I'v made most of the mistakes posible with the carbide tools, and if there are more mistakes I'll proberbly find them! Broke the tip on my best boring bar the other week, I'll have to braze on a new one. It will be interesting shaping a bit of carbide to fit. Ian S C

looking for this, thanks for the information guys

Blowing, hi, what you building, tell us a bit about it. Ian S C