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What Did You Buy Today?
- Thread starter darkzero
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 787
Same dilemma here. I’m thinking rotary table first for milling radius, and dividing head later if I ever need to make gears, etc.
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2015
- Messages
- 8,297
wait until you know what you want to do. I've had a few projects that I needed a rotating table, I don't even have a swivel for my vise. So when doing angles I have had to move my vise and clamp it down. I also used my pallet and reclamped the piece.
I was ok with that. When needing to round edges, I would put a pin in a piece of metal and hold it in the vise, then rotate the part, sometimes adding a handle... so when this came up I jumped. 6" tables are rare around here. plenty of larger units.. 10" and larger are more plentiful.
there's 2 10" and an 18" right now w/in an hour drive.
the larger ones take a long time to go.
As far as your needs, if you are doing gears, simple gears can be done on a rotary table using dividing plates and a TS..
most of us don't need a dividing head. If you do, you'll know it.
A rotary table does more than an indexing head.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 4,306
I have one of those 3" Wilton bullet vises that I bought for $50 a few years ago and love it to bits. It's super sturdy
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 787
Wanted a Wilton Bullet bad…but the SE USA is bad for machine tool availability, and it’s hard to find deals on those. Went forged instead.
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2016
- Messages
- 7,018
Just to finish up on my RT from above, it cleaned up ok. I keep putting oil on the oil cup, but so far nothing shows on the sight glass. The picture looks like something is there, but it's the camera angle.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2020
- Messages
- 159
Well, I didn't buy all of this today, but now that I have a camera that's not a pain to use and a clean work bench, here's what I bought over the past few months:
First up, a whole BOATLOAD of drills. Probably too many, honestly. My favorite is the 22" long 1/2" diameter taper shank drill. Also included are some taps (including pulley taps, always wanted some of those!), carbide tipped taper shank reamers, and extra-long #2 carbide center drills.
Here's that hilariously long drill. It's almost too big to be useful in my machine, but I just wanted it for the "cool" factor.
I'm really excited to use this geometric die head. I've been contemplating making some custom aquarium hardware, and I've heard these die heads are great for cutting NPT. Also pictured is a 5/8" solid carbide indexable boring bar, some really massive spade drills that I'm questioning the utility of, and a whole boatload of abrasive stones.
Some tuning fork clamps, parallels, a Bridgeport-brand R8 endmill holder, scales, an indexable end mill (always wanted one with round inserts), and some surface gages that need a bit of love.
I wasn't super happy with my 4" rotary table from Little Machine Shop, so I decided to upgrade. Clickspring has said he really liked his Vertex rotary table, so I went for one of those. Seems pretty well built!
A Starrett #359 bevel protractor and a Starrett #446 1-2" depth mic. They both need some TLC, but they seem to be in good working order!
One of those old-timey Hand Tool Rescue wrenches. Probably not something I'll use too terribly much, but it looks cool!
Finally, a full set of drills from Chicago Latrobe. I have an import-quality set that's been driving me nuts. The number drills were the worst, drilling far oversize and leaving a terrible surface finish. These have performed beautifully and should last me a long, long time.
So that's basically everything. Sorry for the massive wall of pictures, I cropped a lot of them down substantially so that should hopefully help with the file sizes.
First up, a whole BOATLOAD of drills. Probably too many, honestly. My favorite is the 22" long 1/2" diameter taper shank drill. Also included are some taps (including pulley taps, always wanted some of those!), carbide tipped taper shank reamers, and extra-long #2 carbide center drills.
Here's that hilariously long drill. It's almost too big to be useful in my machine, but I just wanted it for the "cool" factor.
I'm really excited to use this geometric die head. I've been contemplating making some custom aquarium hardware, and I've heard these die heads are great for cutting NPT. Also pictured is a 5/8" solid carbide indexable boring bar, some really massive spade drills that I'm questioning the utility of, and a whole boatload of abrasive stones.
Some tuning fork clamps, parallels, a Bridgeport-brand R8 endmill holder, scales, an indexable end mill (always wanted one with round inserts), and some surface gages that need a bit of love.
I wasn't super happy with my 4" rotary table from Little Machine Shop, so I decided to upgrade. Clickspring has said he really liked his Vertex rotary table, so I went for one of those. Seems pretty well built!
A Starrett #359 bevel protractor and a Starrett #446 1-2" depth mic. They both need some TLC, but they seem to be in good working order!
One of those old-timey Hand Tool Rescue wrenches. Probably not something I'll use too terribly much, but it looks cool!
Finally, a full set of drills from Chicago Latrobe. I have an import-quality set that's been driving me nuts. The number drills were the worst, drilling far oversize and leaving a terrible surface finish. These have performed beautifully and should last me a long, long time.
So that's basically everything. Sorry for the massive wall of pictures, I cropped a lot of them down substantially so that should hopefully help with the file sizes.
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- Joined
- Nov 28, 2016
- Messages
- 2,344
Ok, I'm DONE buying machines... for a few days...
Thursday I drove up to Tuckahoe and picked up the old Hendey lathe that @DiscoDan has had for sale for a while...
It came with 3 boxes of parts and tooling, a 12" 4 jaw chuck, dog drive plate, and 2 steady rests.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet DiscoDan, but on the way up, I met up with @will.mcray and delivered a couple of K&T arbor supports that he had been looking for.
I'm tired of driving...
-Bear
Thursday I drove up to Tuckahoe and picked up the old Hendey lathe that @DiscoDan has had for sale for a while...
It came with 3 boxes of parts and tooling, a 12" 4 jaw chuck, dog drive plate, and 2 steady rests.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet DiscoDan, but on the way up, I met up with @will.mcray and delivered a couple of K&T arbor supports that he had been looking for.
I'm tired of driving...
-Bear
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 787
Where did you find room for this one Bear?!? You seemed to be pretty full when I came by for that surface plate!