Mini lathe - my first attempt turning plastic - useless!

[HiltonSteve]

Having pondered this a little bit more...I'm leaning towards that the tools may be a little large for my lathe's toolpost - they do fit in the tool post ok, but even to my untrained eye the tip of the tool is perhaps a little high (& probably the plastic part is being more 'ground' by the long downward edge of the cutting tool as opposed to being 'cut' by the tool tip!) . Like I say, I'm a complete 'wet behind the ears' with lathes...but hey, we've all got to start somewhere...& I started with plastic & ended up here!

Yes, i would say the tool is too high.

Put a centre drill or something with a point on in the chuck and offer the tool up to it when mounted in the tool post, or you could use a centre if you have one for the tailstock. Tip of turning tool should be inline with the point or centreline of the drill or centre, too high and you won't cut a thing.

Edit - Found this which may help http://start-model-engineering.co.uk/

[HankMcSpank]

Yes, i would say the tool is too high.

Put a centre drill or something with a point on in the chuck and offer the tool up to it when mounted in the tool post

Just to give some closure here, it is indeed a misalignment problem...



it's only out by a margin of something approaching six weeks! (ie not even close!)

Looks like I'm gonna have to get some smaller tools.

Thanks everyone ...hopefully some good came out of this thread (ie those videos for others that are clueless like myself!)