- Joined
- Jan 29, 2017
- Messages
- 311
This is my experience with what in Australia is called a Workman 250 x 550 lathe. It is exactly the same as what is also known as a G0602 as supplied by Grizzly in the US and comes under other names in different parts of the world.
Gday viewers my name is fitterman1 and I live in Australia down the bottom just off the middle.
I'm a mechanical fitter by trade and I bought one of these lathes a couple of years ago to plonk in the shed to make things for myself and others.
Since I bought it I've spent all this time on and off ripping it to bits and going over those same bits to come up with a machine that has some form of precision and repeat-ability in its function as well as a much improved feel in the way it is manipulated.
This write-up is going to take ages to complete because I still have to work out how to upload pictures. I'm also going to go about it in a haphazard order because that's how it happened.
So the story starts 2 yrs ago when this fella I know was shutting down shop.
He is a boilermaker and bought the lathe to bevel the edges of tubing and small od pipework prior to welding a butt joint.
That's all he used it for, and in the 6mths he owned it he reckons it did about 12hrs of work.
Anyway I took it off his hands for a bargain basement price of AU$500, they retail at $1250 on flea-bay by a local. Not a bad price if I say so myself.
On the way home I popped into a local tool vendors shop and also bought an engine lifting crane. I had to get it off somehow and the missus wasn't going to bend over backwards to help that's for sure.
Got it off and into the shed and set it up on its stand.
And looked at it. It was so low it could only be suitable for a person a meter tall to use. Talk about ergonomics. I prefer my chuck to be at chest height so I'm not stooped over.
I left it there and went inside and started to devise a stand in my head over the next few days which I fabricated at work in my own time using scraps from left over jobs.
The stand was made from 3" square tube with 1/8" wall thickness and was 1250mm long x 400mm wide with a height of 900mm. On top of that I fitted two pads which corresponded to the two end bases of the lathe. these were welded to the structure and machined flat and level in relation to each other. I can't show actual construction photos as they're nonexistent but here's the headstock end.
Worked out how to add pix.
and the tailstock end. This frame I made parallel and square in every dimension to within one millimeter.
You can see the pad that the lathes weight sits on in the center of the top beam. Even though both pads were machined I scraped them flat as well. There is a 010" gasket between the pad and the stainless steel swarf tray I made. The top beam was designed to be pulled one way or another by the bolts in case there was twist in the bed. Thankfully this bed was free of twist so these bolts are under minimum tension.
This is how the frame is attached to the floor. 16mm studs grouted in at all four corners with Hilti stud grout and enough sticking out so that the pads where the lathe will sit can be leveled. The corners of the frame were reinforced with pads of their own to stiffen up the tube and spread any load more efficiently. The concrete is 6" thick here so no drama with load bearing.
to be continued
Gday viewers my name is fitterman1 and I live in Australia down the bottom just off the middle.
I'm a mechanical fitter by trade and I bought one of these lathes a couple of years ago to plonk in the shed to make things for myself and others.
Since I bought it I've spent all this time on and off ripping it to bits and going over those same bits to come up with a machine that has some form of precision and repeat-ability in its function as well as a much improved feel in the way it is manipulated.
This write-up is going to take ages to complete because I still have to work out how to upload pictures. I'm also going to go about it in a haphazard order because that's how it happened.
So the story starts 2 yrs ago when this fella I know was shutting down shop.
He is a boilermaker and bought the lathe to bevel the edges of tubing and small od pipework prior to welding a butt joint.
That's all he used it for, and in the 6mths he owned it he reckons it did about 12hrs of work.
Anyway I took it off his hands for a bargain basement price of AU$500, they retail at $1250 on flea-bay by a local. Not a bad price if I say so myself.
On the way home I popped into a local tool vendors shop and also bought an engine lifting crane. I had to get it off somehow and the missus wasn't going to bend over backwards to help that's for sure.
Got it off and into the shed and set it up on its stand.
And looked at it. It was so low it could only be suitable for a person a meter tall to use. Talk about ergonomics. I prefer my chuck to be at chest height so I'm not stooped over.
I left it there and went inside and started to devise a stand in my head over the next few days which I fabricated at work in my own time using scraps from left over jobs.
The stand was made from 3" square tube with 1/8" wall thickness and was 1250mm long x 400mm wide with a height of 900mm. On top of that I fitted two pads which corresponded to the two end bases of the lathe. these were welded to the structure and machined flat and level in relation to each other. I can't show actual construction photos as they're nonexistent but here's the headstock end.
Worked out how to add pix.
and the tailstock end. This frame I made parallel and square in every dimension to within one millimeter.
You can see the pad that the lathes weight sits on in the center of the top beam. Even though both pads were machined I scraped them flat as well. There is a 010" gasket between the pad and the stainless steel swarf tray I made. The top beam was designed to be pulled one way or another by the bolts in case there was twist in the bed. Thankfully this bed was free of twist so these bolts are under minimum tension.
This is how the frame is attached to the floor. 16mm studs grouted in at all four corners with Hilti stud grout and enough sticking out so that the pads where the lathe will sit can be leveled. The corners of the frame were reinforced with pads of their own to stiffen up the tube and spread any load more efficiently. The concrete is 6" thick here so no drama with load bearing.
to be continued
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