Was at one of the local flea market type stores and picked up some scrap metal pieces for turning cheap. Among the pieces was a section of what appears to be possibly hardened brass round stock 1.435 in. in diameter about 3.75 in. length. It looks as it has been sheared off at one end and was ragged so I used the bench grinder (hacksaw didn't seem to want to cut it hence why I'm thinking it's been hardened to some degree) to smooth it up enough to get it in the 4-jaw, the other end is mushroomed as if it was pounded/hammered on.
In trying to get it centered up in the 4-jaw I noticed it was bent along the long axis so I'm having trouble figuring out how to go about turning it on the lathe (Atlas 10100) to get it straight/back in round where I can make something useful out of it. I set the DI to roughly the middle of the 3 in. of stock sticking out of the chuck as a starting point since I was having zero luck finding any way to center it in the 4-jaw. Using the middle of the workpiece as a starting point I was able to center it within 0.003 in. at that point on the work.
Setting the DI up at the chuck jaws and rotating the work gives a reading on the DI of 0.092 in. Moving the DI out to just below the mushroomed end of the work & rotating the work again gives a read of 0.075 in., the DI was set up to read off the #1 jaw of the chuck for all three measurements..... chuck end of work 0.092 in., midpoint of work 0.003 in., tailstock (mushroomed) end of work 0.075 in.
My question is...Am I going about this the right way or is there a better way to bring the work piece back into uniform round condition along it's length so that it will be a usable piece of stock to work with ?? Any tips, tricks, voodoo, on set up would be appreciated. Thanks.
In trying to get it centered up in the 4-jaw I noticed it was bent along the long axis so I'm having trouble figuring out how to go about turning it on the lathe (Atlas 10100) to get it straight/back in round where I can make something useful out of it. I set the DI to roughly the middle of the 3 in. of stock sticking out of the chuck as a starting point since I was having zero luck finding any way to center it in the 4-jaw. Using the middle of the workpiece as a starting point I was able to center it within 0.003 in. at that point on the work.
Setting the DI up at the chuck jaws and rotating the work gives a reading on the DI of 0.092 in. Moving the DI out to just below the mushroomed end of the work & rotating the work again gives a read of 0.075 in., the DI was set up to read off the #1 jaw of the chuck for all three measurements..... chuck end of work 0.092 in., midpoint of work 0.003 in., tailstock (mushroomed) end of work 0.075 in.
My question is...Am I going about this the right way or is there a better way to bring the work piece back into uniform round condition along it's length so that it will be a usable piece of stock to work with ?? Any tips, tricks, voodoo, on set up would be appreciated. Thanks.
