- Joined
- Apr 30, 2015
- Messages
- 11,354
Good thing the blade didn't park itself in your hide Glenn! You dodged a blade-bullet
Mark S.
ps I hate parting off
Mark S.
ps I hate parting off
Why I love variable speed, change on the fly, only thing better would be constant surface speed like on some of the Harrisons and a few others.Woah you should never power feed on the x axis when parting on a manual lathe. The reason for this you ask, the surface speed decreases on the tool the smaller the diameter gets, that is a quick way to kill a tool.
But in all honesty I usually don't recommend to any of my students on using the power feed on the x axis at all on a manual lathe for that same reason. A lot of the time you will set your feeds and speeds to the outer diameter and the outer 1/4 of the part has a great finish but as you get closer to the center you end up with galling on the face of the part, and just a crappy finish overall. That is because of the different surface speed with the center running slower then the larger OD. If you have ever watched NC machines run you would be able to see they make up for this by speeding up the spindle the closer you get to the center of the part, this creates a constant surface finish on the part. I have found I can get a smoother surface finish about everything I run on a lathe by feeding the x axis in by hand and I can usually do it a lot quicker then messing around with the feed levers.
Why I love variable speed, change on the fly, only thing better would be constant surface speed like on some of the Harrisons and a few others.
not sure where I saw this but I have made several parting tools from a carbide tipped table saw blade - yup that's right. you can get a bunch of them from one 10" C-T'd blade. Just go easy on the feed and use a diamond wheel to reshape the cutting 'point' to suit your fancy.