To start, I just finished reading a thread from another fella who was shopping for a used lathe in something like the 14x50 size range, and I'm sitting here, a rookie, with my 7x16 and feeling so puny. Anyway, that aside....
So, I have a Little Machine Shop 5100 7x16 mini-lathe (I have a similarly sized mill from them as well). It comes standard with a 4" 3-jaw chuck, and I want to get myself a 4-jaw chuck with independent jaws because, you know, once I figured out what they were, I had to have one. The User Guide for the lathe says that the 4" chucks work well, but that the lathe will support a 5" chuck as well. So, I'm wondering if there's some reason NOT to get the 5" chuck. Is it likely to stress the lathe somehow?
Other info. I was a woodworker for a long time, and so I've developed the attitude that my power tools all want to kill me, and so I treat them with the respect they deserve. I made the move to metal as something of a new hobby when I retired (I just turned 70 a couple of weeks ago). Right now, my plans for metalworking seem to be coalescing around building little steam engines, although I saw a set of youtube videos about building an orrery (a solar system model), which is mostly a project involving a lot of gear cutting. so, I'm not thinking about making big things, really. I might try to convert what I have to CNC at some point. I'm not sure why, just seems like a fun thing to do. The steam engine kit I'm starting to work on is a P.M. Research 1BI Steam Drilling Engine. The videos I've seen about working on it would seem to indicate that having a 4 jaw chuck and a faceplate would be helpful things to have. And heck, what's the sense of doing a project if you can't buy more tools to work on it, right?
Anyway, any thoughts you might have on all this would be appreciated. Thanks.
Ron
So, I have a Little Machine Shop 5100 7x16 mini-lathe (I have a similarly sized mill from them as well). It comes standard with a 4" 3-jaw chuck, and I want to get myself a 4-jaw chuck with independent jaws because, you know, once I figured out what they were, I had to have one. The User Guide for the lathe says that the 4" chucks work well, but that the lathe will support a 5" chuck as well. So, I'm wondering if there's some reason NOT to get the 5" chuck. Is it likely to stress the lathe somehow?
Other info. I was a woodworker for a long time, and so I've developed the attitude that my power tools all want to kill me, and so I treat them with the respect they deserve. I made the move to metal as something of a new hobby when I retired (I just turned 70 a couple of weeks ago). Right now, my plans for metalworking seem to be coalescing around building little steam engines, although I saw a set of youtube videos about building an orrery (a solar system model), which is mostly a project involving a lot of gear cutting. so, I'm not thinking about making big things, really. I might try to convert what I have to CNC at some point. I'm not sure why, just seems like a fun thing to do. The steam engine kit I'm starting to work on is a P.M. Research 1BI Steam Drilling Engine. The videos I've seen about working on it would seem to indicate that having a 4 jaw chuck and a faceplate would be helpful things to have. And heck, what's the sense of doing a project if you can't buy more tools to work on it, right?
Anyway, any thoughts you might have on all this would be appreciated. Thanks.
Ron