- Joined
- Oct 20, 2014
- Messages
- 495
Hi All,
Well, as I wanted to, I was able to get out in the shop a little bit this weekend. Gimpy knee was a hindrance, but the urge to make chips was stronger.
First thing I did was clean up my lathe and accessories. Despite being wrapped in oiled paper, and being wiped down with oil before being boxed up, there was surface rust here and there. A quick once-over with a brass wheel took care of that, and everything got a nice clean wipedown with clean oil on a clean rag.
The work surface is a 1" thick piece of MDF I cut from an old computer desk. It's topped with a 12ga sheet metal shelf I scrounged from an old equipment rack.
The motor is a DC treadmill motor. Definitely overkill as far as power goes, but if you work within the limits of the machine, it's nice to have a motor that doesn't struggle or bog down when cutting. You don't hog off insane amounts of metal, but a normal cut for the machine with a sharp tool goes like a dream. Normally there's a cover over the open end of the motor, but it went missing. I'll need to make another. My temporary fix is the cut-off bottom of a pop bottle zip-tied in place. Ugly as sin, but it keeps the chips out. One thing I really like about that motor, is that I can have lots of grunt at low RPM, or spin the lathe up to ~6K. All without changing the belt. The sharp-eyed among you will no doubt howl about the spindle pulley. Yes, it's not the correct one for that belt. The one I was making got lost, so I'll have to make another proper pulley. It's on the to-do list.
The motor controller is mounted in a plain electrical box. It has a breaker, an On-Off switch, and a speed control knob. I also use a DC motor on my Atlas horizontal mill, and use locking plugs to swap the controller between the two. Convenient.
I added inexpensive (Harbor Freight) digital calipers for my "poor man's DRO", and they work simply awesome They're accurate enough for the work I do, and when more accuracy is needed, I get out the micrometers. They make it easy to zero in on a dimension, then sneak up on it. I haven't had any battery issues, other than not having any on-hand at the moment. Need to get some. When I use the milling attachment, I generally have a 1" DI in place on it to provide me with a readout for the Y axis. Since I have a horizontal mill, I don't use the milling attachment on the Taig as much as I used to. I haven't seen a need to fit a caliper on the milling attachment yet.
So that's my little Taig. I need to finish cleaning up my accessories, and get it's workspace tidied up, then I'll post more pictures. As-is, my Taig workspace is the only organized area in my shop at the moment.
More pics to come as I pimp out my lathe.
Well, as I wanted to, I was able to get out in the shop a little bit this weekend. Gimpy knee was a hindrance, but the urge to make chips was stronger.
First thing I did was clean up my lathe and accessories. Despite being wrapped in oiled paper, and being wiped down with oil before being boxed up, there was surface rust here and there. A quick once-over with a brass wheel took care of that, and everything got a nice clean wipedown with clean oil on a clean rag.
The work surface is a 1" thick piece of MDF I cut from an old computer desk. It's topped with a 12ga sheet metal shelf I scrounged from an old equipment rack.
The motor is a DC treadmill motor. Definitely overkill as far as power goes, but if you work within the limits of the machine, it's nice to have a motor that doesn't struggle or bog down when cutting. You don't hog off insane amounts of metal, but a normal cut for the machine with a sharp tool goes like a dream. Normally there's a cover over the open end of the motor, but it went missing. I'll need to make another. My temporary fix is the cut-off bottom of a pop bottle zip-tied in place. Ugly as sin, but it keeps the chips out. One thing I really like about that motor, is that I can have lots of grunt at low RPM, or spin the lathe up to ~6K. All without changing the belt. The sharp-eyed among you will no doubt howl about the spindle pulley. Yes, it's not the correct one for that belt. The one I was making got lost, so I'll have to make another proper pulley. It's on the to-do list.
The motor controller is mounted in a plain electrical box. It has a breaker, an On-Off switch, and a speed control knob. I also use a DC motor on my Atlas horizontal mill, and use locking plugs to swap the controller between the two. Convenient.
I added inexpensive (Harbor Freight) digital calipers for my "poor man's DRO", and they work simply awesome They're accurate enough for the work I do, and when more accuracy is needed, I get out the micrometers. They make it easy to zero in on a dimension, then sneak up on it. I haven't had any battery issues, other than not having any on-hand at the moment. Need to get some. When I use the milling attachment, I generally have a 1" DI in place on it to provide me with a readout for the Y axis. Since I have a horizontal mill, I don't use the milling attachment on the Taig as much as I used to. I haven't seen a need to fit a caliper on the milling attachment yet.
So that's my little Taig. I need to finish cleaning up my accessories, and get it's workspace tidied up, then I'll post more pictures. As-is, my Taig workspace is the only organized area in my shop at the moment.
More pics to come as I pimp out my lathe.