Mini Lathes and their capability

I've watched a lot of vids on you tube of people who own one these lathes,mostly the same lathe branded under a different name.

I know they're only intended or aimed at the modeller but what I have not seen is the owners using these lathes with mild steel,does this mean these lathes are not up to scratch with this material? the motor in them is small but it looks powerful enough and apart from some plastic gears on the drive shaft and spindle I can only summize that this is the drawback on the lathe?.

Forgot to mention,that RDG tools has the metal drive and spindle gears replacements for the C2 nd C3 Mini lathe if anyones interested?

Hi. All I can tell you is that my Sherline will handle anything that'll go in the chuck up to it's full capacity. I've turned a lot of 45mm dia cast iron and mild steel without any problems at all.

Hi B5f

Ok,just never came across anyone using Mild Steel in those lathes on Youtube,all seem to use brass,Aluminium or plastics mateial.

Cheers.

Mines a 400W motor, some of them are only 150 or 200W.

I can cut free-cutting mild steel fine, as long as the tool is sharp and the cut not too big... on a 20mm dia workpiece a 0.5mm cut at 1500rpm and .1mm/rev feedrate is just about OK, with sprayed/brushed-on coolant... anything more and the machine complains and surface fiinish suffers...

I was going to post a vid of someone new to using his mini lathe,he was using the tool on the wrong side of the toolpost. :eek:

But someones complained about me posting vid sh*te.

The issue with your post George wasnt that the video was bad, but that you were critical of the individual doing what is a perfectly normal machining operation, which said more about you than it did about the video...

we all love to criticise and critique others (go search for CNC Crash on youtube for instance... but dont post them here, we've all seen them) but sometimes there's a perfectly good reason for doing something in a way that at first sight seems wrong... you should see some of the lashups I've done to get a result... though I'd not be silly enough to post them online!

On the toolpost issue, I thought at first you meant rear toolpost but then I realised you didnt... but putting the cutter to the right side of the toolpost might be acceptable to get nearer to the tailstock on a long part supported in centres...

No,no,Irving this wasn't a rear toolpost it was the bog standard TP,he had the tool in the right side of the TP and was turning with it until it couldn't go no further ie the TP would have collided with the chuck. :-)

yes, but that video was posted in 2006 so old news....