Mini lathes - possible to turn stainless?

[HankMcSpank]

Hi 2E0poz ...alas whatever I buy has to go through a loft hatch!

Tom, thanks for the input - I think they're from the Real Bull factory in China (SPG tools is slioghtly cheaper, but out of stock for a week or two ...plus he's in the Midlands whereas this seller I linked to is only 20 mins drive away here in London.

The seller has been very clever with the lathe price points.

Yes The £340 lather is the better buy, but he also does a lathe with some useful accessories deal for a sneaky £395 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-Lathe-Bra...lenotsupported) ....it can all end up getting a little more than I'd expected to pay!

[HankMcSpank]

Having spent too long researching these over the past few days, I'd learnt that an independent 4 jaw was going to be the most useful, therefore I'll probably take the package & just flog the 3 jaw chuck on (most comments I've read suggest that you never go back to a 3 jaw after using an independent 4 jaw!).

I genuinely don't know what size tooling it uses yet (I'm hopefully going to see these at his premises tomorrow)

Here's my initial shoppinng list...

the lathe ith independent 4 jaw chuck.
tailstock chuck
A cutting set! (was just going to go HSS as I have a grinder and read that it's easy to maintain these youirself)

nice to haves...

lever tailstock
Quick change toolpost.
proper boring rod.

[HiltonSteve]

Having spent too long researching these over the past few days, I'd learnt that an independent 4 jaw was going to be the most useful, therefore I'll probably take the package & just flog the 3 jaw chuck on (most comments I've read suggest that you never go back to a 3 jaw after using an independent 4 jaw!).

If you are worried about run out on your 3 jaw then get yourself a set of soft jaws for it and bore them out on the machine that it will be used on. I have done this many times before, its quick and easy to do.

Just a thought....

[HankMcSpank]

What a splendid idea....do these soft jaws cost much? (cos it may be cheaper just to buy a 4 jaw independent chuck!

Perhaps I need to hold fire on this as there's stuff popping up that I'd never considered (& it's stuff that'll save me outlay!)

[HiltonSteve]

Soft jaws should only be about £20-£30 a set depending on the chuck manufacturer.

They do have more uses than just boring out the inside diameter to prevent runout, you can also bore out the face's with a shoulder for holding larger dia items. Say you had a 100mm dia circular bearing holder with a finish width of 20mm then you could bore the jaws at 100mm dia down to a depth of say 15mm, cut the 100 mm dia material a couple of mm's oversize in a saw and then when you put it in the chuck and tap it up to the shoulder it will run true and will be easy to get the width parallel.

Also if you bore them to the size of the part you are machining then it helps prevent marking of the workpiece that hard jaws can sometimes leave, specially on soft material like aluminum.

[Tom]

Having spent too long researching these over the past few days, I'd learnt that an independent 4 jaw was going to be the most useful, therefore I'll probably take the package & just flog the 3 jaw chuck on (most comments I've read suggest that you never go back to a 3 jaw after using an independent 4 jaw!).

Hank,

If you go the 4 jaw independent route, consider getting a larger chuck than standard. Standard is 75mm.
100mm and 125mm are both options. 125mm uses up a fair bit of bed length, but i've found myself boring holes in sheet that I wouldn't have been able to hold in a 100mm chuck. Also the large spinning mass has smoothed some of my cuts out (not to mention making the lathe significantly more DEADLY :twisted:)