Bought my first lathe

After years of wanting one I finally broke down and bought the HF 7x10 mini-lathe. So far I've been having fun chucking up anything I can find to cut and face

Of course, after a couple of days of the same routine it's getting old so I'm looking for something useful I can make but I really have no idea where to start. Without some examples in front of me I'm just not sure what a lathe's capable of. Ideally I would find some projects related to cars or tools but Google is really letting me down. Most searches end up at the woodworking sites.

Are there any forums dedicated to lathes or machining? Anyone here made anything useful on your lathe? even the simplest ones are interesting to me. In fact since I'm a total newbie I'd prefer the projects to be simple.

http://littlemachineshop.com/

Good site, especially for the HF tools.

Search "Model Engineering" in Google. All kinds of stuff will come up

Does your car need suspension bushings? Or maybe that guy with the sprocket in the other thread could mail it to you .

Here's a good start:

http://www.mini-lathe.com/

Also,

Home Shop Machinist

and

Practical Machinist

have very active forums for machining. Don't post questions about your lathe on the latter though

RussellH wrote: Ideally I would find some projects related to cars or tools but Google is really letting me down. Most searches end up at the woodworking sites. Are there any forums dedicated to lathes or machining?

there are a few nifty projects at http://metalshapers.org

Just look around your garage. When you own a lathe, all the world's issues look like problems in roundness. I've used mine for everything from fixing the toilet to fabricating Mercedes parts.

Start knurling stuff.

Thanks guys. I found projectsinmetal.com there're lots of free project plans but pretty advanced for someone like me.

Knurling is a good idea...I'll have to check into how it's done on a lathe without the specialized tools.

Bushings is a good idea too but I don't need any at this time and Derlin is expensive! In fact, buying stock material is expensive in general.

Start keeping anything vaguely round. Throw it in a box. As in after you finish a project, whatever it is, and there's a bolt left over, new or beat to crap, throw it in the box. Oh, there's a pipe fitting. That might come in handy sometime. Throwing out a printer? Beat it apart and take the roller things and stick them in the box. Then when you need to make something, you go through the box looking for something a little bit bigger than what you need it to be. A large bolt from the hardware store comes in handy.

Oh, and mcmaster.com has Delrin and other similar materials in small quantities of round stock.

hmm... clutch alignment tool for a MINI... can I send you the dimensions?

Dr. Hess, I know what you mean. Since I've gotten the lathe I've gone through the house looking for anything round...i've been playing with the white pvc schedule 40 pipe lately

Ian, sure you can send me the dimensions and the material but what you get back is not guaranteed to fit or work

lightweight accessory pulleys and shift knobs to sell to your GRM friends cut from hunks of aluminum...dont have hunks of aluminum?

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/look-what-i-can-do/12619/page1/#post187420

For materials try:

http://www.metalexpress.net/

I usually use them when I need a known grade of metal. The also used to sell cutoffs in packages at reasonable prices. I haven't ordered from them in a while, but check them out. Check the local junk yard as well. There is a local one that will let you wander the yard and pick what you want. They sell by the pound. Some of the round they sell is hardened and will trash a cutting tool in a hurry.