Just picked up my 13" Leblond Regal lathe now I need to learn to use it

first: Congrats! I LOVE LeBlond lathes! (I don't have one)

In order to get going safely and to preserve the machine, you need to obtain some kind of way cover, as above, but
the most important project I did for my lathe is: (drum roll please) a block or plate for your lathe chuck so you can position your chuck to put it on/take it off without the possibility of a 'ding' on the ways.

Here's mine:

IMG_2971-sm.JPG

Some people just use a hunk of plywood:

IMG_2973-sm.JPG

I know, you are asking for is a project - in metal- to turn on your lathe!

Problem is, I turn on my lathe 20 times a week for little 5 minute jobs. I never do 'lathe projects' But I couldn't live without it!

Do you have a hard or micrometer carriage stop? - very handy!
 
You got yourself a nice lathe, there. One of the suggestions was to make tools for your lathe, and I couldn't agree more. I haven't reached the end of making tools. Chuck keys, carriage stops, tool post things, cutting tools, radius cutters, taper attachments, post grinders, tailstock accessories... Back when I was in high school shop class, we would have to perfect turning to prescribed diameters before moving on to other things. This would involve turning a 1" bar down in 1/8" steps (or whatever) and if the instructor didn't like the quality of your work, he would destroy it before your eyes using one of the many, many methods available in a well-equipped shop class. I was happy to move on to making knurled center punches after passing that test...
 
Great looking lathe and well tooled it appears. :) Make sure you understand the controls on your machine and what
they do. If you have LeBlond specific questions, the the LeBlond sub-forum is the place to ask them.

Don't know about that video series, but "How To Run A Lathe" was a book published by South Bend Lathe Works.
Another older reference is the Manual Of Lathe Operation (MOLO) published by Atlas Press. Both are full of useful
information and are available at http://abebooks.com.
 
Nogoingback said:
Instead of a specific project, just get some easily machined round bar and start working with it. 6061 T6 aluminum and 12L14 steel both
machine nicely for that purpose. Do you have cutting tools yet? You also need some basic measuring tools if you don't have them.
You can initially perform some basic operations like facing, turning, drilling etc. Pick a diameter, and then try to turn to that diameter
accurately. Pay attention to spindle speed, feed rates and depth of cut. Make some spacers. While you're doing this, you'll learn a
bunch about your lathe and what it can do. Before you know it, you'll have a project in mind.

Oh, and by the way, if there are no pictures, it didn't happen...
Click to expand...

Thanks, good suggestions
Dabbler said:
first: Congrats! I LOVE LeBlond lathes! (I don't have one)

In order to get going safely and to preserve the machine, you need to obtain some kind of way cover, as above, but
the most important project I did for my lathe is: (drum roll please) a block or plate for your lathe chuck so you can position your chuck to put it on/take it off without the possibility of a 'ding' on the ways.

Here's mine:

View attachment 279220

Some people just use a hunk of plywood:

View attachment 279221

I know, you are asking for is a project - in metal- to turn on your lathe!

Problem is, I turn on my lathe 20 times a week for little 5 minute jobs. I never do 'lathe projects' But I couldn't live without it!

Do you have a hard or micrometer carriage stop? - very handy!
Click to expand...

Dabbler, good suggestion. I was planning on making something similar. The chucks are way heavy. Fortunately, a micrometer carriage stop was included in the tooling. I imagine I will be like you, using the lathe in support of other projects. Thank you for the feedback.
 
Fortunately, a micrometer carriage stop was included in the tooling
Click to expand...

That's great! Have a lot of fun with your new purchase!
 
I would look to see if there is home shop machinery group or a mentor near you.
 
Also watch the videos and make some of the projects on Thatlazymachinist.com
His hammer project is a good beginner lathe project.
 
Nice machine and tooling you got there! That Jacobs collet chuck is a sweet piece. Good luck with the lathe. Have fun but BE CAREFUL.
 
I don't see than anyone's mentined it, You can thank your lucky stars your lathe has a "Quick Change Gear Box!" This will allow you to change the feed rate (and thread pitch) just by moving levers. Many of us have to manually "change gears." take out the wrong gears and put in the correct ones, in the correct position. We generally have to change 3 to 5 gears for any change.
 
Jim Huel said:
I also have no experience and just got my lathe powered. So, I can't speak from experience, but can say what is fun for me. And, this isn t my business, so it's mostly about fun.

I spent a couple hours experimenting on a $1 flea market steel rod. Used a round nose HSS shaper cutter and played with feeds and feeds, and trying to hit target diameters.

I need a 3/16 - 32 machine thumb screw for locking the shapers depth of cut dial, so tried that. I suspect that's not a recommended first project, but covers some different issues. Knurling the head was surprisingly easy, probably due to having a heavy lathe. I got the od pretty close, but not so great on lengths. Threads were marginal, and I need to grind a better tool shape. I was starting probably the last threading pass when the screw broke. Some brief disappointment but no big loss and I'll do some things differently next time.

Trying to make something specific is a lot more interesting to me. Even if the part is a fail, I'm no worse off than doing drills. And definitely shoot for specific dimensions. That seemed harder to do on a real part than when just practising. Real world "pressure". But, great fun.
Click to expand...
Hello! Congrats, man!
What an envious looking pile of tooling. Lol
I just got a round head regal 13 for 400 bucks in providence forge, va. The catch is that it came with no compound rest.
Can you maybe give me some dimensions on it, maybe couple close pics?
Thank you so much!
 
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