In article , Pete C. wrote:
Artemia Salina wrote:

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 19:50:15 +0400, Gil HASH wrote:

[ ... ]

If you study various machines you will see that they are composed
primarily of cylindrical parts. Shafts, pulleys, pins, bolts, cranks,
pistons and cylinders, etc. This is what lathes are designed to make
best, so statistically, lathes are put to use more often than other
machine tools when fabricating or repairing other machines. It depends
on what you want to make with your machine shop, but I think in general
you will find more use in a lathe than you will in a milling machine.

What holds all those cylindrical parts together? Parts that were milled
mostly, and while you can inexpensively purchase shafts, pulleys, pins
and bolts off the shelf, you can not purchase the pieces to hold it all
together.

How often do you make your own bolts anyway vs. purchase quality bolts
like perhaps grade 8 which would be difficult to produce yourself?

Well ... I have made special purpose bolts of various sorts
which I either could not purchase, or could not get affordably in the
quantities in which I needed them.

And I've even made special purpose bolts for my Clausing lathe.
The taper attachment came from eBay, and was not complete. I needed
special bolts with specific lengths and with square heads to match those
on the rest of the lathe and those still present on the taper
attachment, just so one wrench would do for all of those.

Granted, I used a small milling machine and an index head to
produce the square heads. For hex heads, I often just start with hex
stock fed through the spindle of the lathe. I turn off what is needed
to make the shank, thread it, and then part off to form the head.

(And I often use the Geometric die heads in a bed turret in the
lathe for the threading in this sort of operation.)

Enjoy,
DoN.

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