Here's one thing you can do with a lathe:

One of my son's friends asked me to help him get his mower going last week.
He mows neighbors' yards for extra money and was short on cash so I told him
I'd see what I could do. It turned out the starter solenoid was dead. We
could hear it clicking but it wasn't passing power to the starter. At first
I suggested he buy one the next day but he had a couple of yards he needed
to mow early and asked if I could do anything with the old one.

I drilled out the rivets and found that there was a plastic piece that had
broken off inside. When energized the coil pushed a steel plunger down
which pushed on this plastic piece. The plastic piece was supposed to be
attached to the center of the washer that made contact across the two bolts
that the wires were attached to completing the circuit to the starter.

I chucked the washer into my lathe and drilled a small hole into the center
of the remaining part of the plastic. Then I took a brass screw, cut it
down to the diameter of the broken plastic piece and then cut the end a bit
smaller so that it would fit in the hole I'd drilled. I then cut it to
length, put a dab of superglue on it and pressed it into the hole and put
everything back together with pop rivets. It cranked right up and has been
working ever since!

So that's one thing you can do with a lathe. :-)

The lathe's you're looking at would have done this job very well but there
are a few other things that they would not be well suited for. You should
take a look at this site for info on some alternatives:

http://www.mini-lathe.com

I have a JET 9x20 which is a bit bigger than the ones at that site but it's
still small enough to fit on a bench. The JET is probably a bit overpriced
for the JET name but you can get the same basic lathe from Harbor Freight
for a bit less:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45861

It's often on sale for $600-$700 and I believe it includes many extras such
as a steady rest and a follow rest that cost extra with the minis. Grizzly
and Enco sell their own versions of this same lathe too.

Best Regards,
Keith Marshall


"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"


"Silvan" wrote in message
...
I'm looking for some inspiration here... I've played with a bit of simple
drill press wood turning, found turning addictive, and I'm planning to
purchase a lathe sometime soonish.

I have a small shop, and I favor small projects. I'm thinking of a "hobby
lathe" since I'm more likely to turn spindles for doll furniture than
people sized stuff.

The spread on the Taig lathe in the Lee Valley catalog got me thinking
about
buying a *metal* lathe instead of a wood lathe. I've since done a bit of
reading about that one, and the similarly sized Sherline.

I'm always building things out of whatever materials I can scrounge for
free
(not much budget), and I constantly run into situations where I wish I
could fabricate a bit of something. I have a $200 bandsaw, and have built
a lot of things out of angle iron and bar stock (using fasteners... I
can't weld), but that's about as far as my metalworking experience goes.

So what I'm looking to get out of this post is a sense of just what people
*do* with metal lathes, and what I could learn to do on something like a
Taig lathe. Other than issues of scale, what can I do with one of those
big $20,000 industrial lathes that I couldn't do with a small hobby
machine?

I've been googling around, but I just don't have much of a sense of this.
Other than a few really obvious things, like the turned brass finials on
my
fireplace, I can't look at the world around me and say "that was made with
a lathe."

Most of the FAQs for this group are just too far beyond my experience to
make much sense. Bookstores have woodworking sections, but I've never
seen
diddly squat about metalworking. I've been thinking about taking some
classes at the local community college, but I'm a truck driver, and my
schedule is extremely irregular. Plus they don't seem to have anything
that's geared toward the weekend swarf maker.

Anyway, I'm sorry I'm blathering on so. I've about decided to get a metal
lathe no matter what, but it would be nice to have a list of things I can
tell SWMBO I can make with the thing.

Thanks...

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/