New member with Craftsman 109. My first project

[Damien]

Hello! I’m a new member here. I joined up after lurking for a while so I could finally see full sized images and post when I have questions.

i currently only have a Craftsman 109.0703 lathe. When I was young my dad brought it home from somewhere with plans to set it up and mess around with it a little. That never happened. He passed and years went by. I moved to Florida from Ohio but after 10 years I finally bought my own home so wanted to get a workshop going. I went back to Ohio with a Penske truck to gather my fathers tools. I saw the sad 109 stting there collected dust and loaded it up to bring back with me.

it had no motor or wiring so I rigged something up (luckily it did have the three step pulley) and got it going! It’s missing the hand wheel for the lead screw as well as a handle for the angle slide part of the compound slide, but I’ve made do with some temporary ”handles” until I can make some new ones... which brings me to my first project!



i grabbed some aluminum 3” stock off of eBay and decided to have a go at making a handle for the lead screw. Here’s my progress so far! Just waiting on my parting tool to get here so I can finish it up. After parting I’ll face the other side and then inset the center a little bit, leaving a ridge that I can attach a handle to.



I know the 109 is not highly regarded as a machine capable of any type of serious work. I’m apt to agree with that statement. Removing this much material took hours on this thing. im looking for a more robust machine but down here in Florida everyone thinks their machines are made of solid gold. 2k for an old southbend 9a with little tooling and not hooked up to hear it run... yeah I’m going to wait until something reasonable pops up. In the mean time, I’ll mess around on this little guy and have fun learning the basics.

Thanks for having me on the forum!

 

[Damien]

My current hand wheel... lol

 

[chippermat]

Looks like fun! Remember it's not what ya got but what you do with what ya got

 

[Nutfarmer]

We all had to start somewhere. Not all of us can afford new top of the line . I have seen some beautiful work done on an Atlas lathe. It's the machinist not the equipment that's the most important. Looks like you are off to a good start.

 

[wa5cab]

Do you have a band saw? You are apt to have trouble parting off that large a piece with that lathe.

 

[Damien]

I have a shopsmith bandsaw but i have no idea whether that blade would be suitable for cutting this aluminum.

 

[wa5cab]

I wouldn't try it with the Shopsmith. I also have one as part of my Mark V model 520 Greenie. It has fixed blade guides instead of roller. Although the blade will probably be OK with cutting aluminum alloy, it will chew up the guides pretty badly by the time that you are finished.

 

[Damien]

Mine is the same way. Solid guides instead of rollers. I’m going to try the parting tool. I’ll just have to go slowly. Heck, with what I’ve done so far I’m use to it.

 

[Manual Mac]

I had a Dunlop 109 like yours when I was a kid. It was a lot of fun.
I learned a lot on it, was able to make small accurate parts I guess the little lathe shouldn’t have been able to make, but nobody told me that.
That little guy even has back gears.
Have fun.

 

[wa5cab]

For parting off, use the narrowest blade that you can find. I mostly use carbide grooving cutters in 1/16" or 1/32" widths. Can't recall the name of the maker at the moment. It will come to me.