At what point did you decide to make a "big" tool purchase? (For example: mill, lathe, etc.)

[CarterKraft]

That's a bummer. Work just bought the G0791 12x36 combo job. Should be here in a couple weeks.

Oh man
Fingers crossed for yah.

 

[Chris775]

China lathe showed up! Little overwhelming but I'll figure it out.

The base for this thing sucks bad. I've never seen a situation where one tried so hard to make pepsi cans look like a real piece of cast iron. Decided to build a base that wouldn't be perfect either but would be solid enough to accurately shim off of. Hope to get the two mated this week.

 

[Landslide]

Not necessarily steel fab shop stuff but I have both wood and steel fab tools.

I picked up a used dust collector system for a deal I couldn’t pass up. Can’t wait to get this beast up and running.

Got a bunch of spiral duck work with it too.

 

[cj7jeep81]

Finally using my big lathe. Had to chase threads on a hydraulic barrel. Had just enough room to at least pass through chuck (but not enough spindle hole to not need a steady rest).

 

[arse_sidewards]

I wish my lathe was that new.

 

[cj7jeep81]

I wish my lathe was that new.

My first lathe was a WW2 era Monarch. Really cool machine, but as I moved more to a side business than a hobby, I really needed to upgrade. Newer machines may not be built as well or look nearly as nice, but been a few improvements from the 40's to the 80's (which is when most of my stuff now was made).

 

[arse_sidewards]

My first lathe was a WW2 era Monarch. Really cool machine, but as I moved more to a side business than a hobby, I really needed to upgrade. Newer machines may not be built as well or look nearly as nice, but been a few improvements from the 40's to the 80's (which is when most of my stuff now was made).

My lathe is from the 1870s or so, not really sure. Doesn't even have any sort of indication on the X or Z (or if it did it was so long since lost I couldn't tell) until I put a DRO on it (I should have ignored everyone's suggestion and got a 3-axis and slapped a scale on the compound like I was initially thinking). There's no fine feed on the Z axis. They expected you to use the carriage for coarse feed or power feed (which I still haven't made work yet) and then lock it out and use the compound for fine feed in the Z direction (or at an angle). Needs new headstock bearings poured too so right now it delivers garbage finish in the normal directions of cut and not passable but better if you cut away from center or away from the head stock. Max speed is somewhere below 200rpm. I need to experiment more with how the insert meets the work and reconfigure the motor/transmission to up the speed. I think I might be able to come up with passable finishes and eek out another decade or more before fucking with the head stock.

The one thing that's nice about it being flat belt and quick change gears is that there's immensely less to go wrong with it than a geared head stock, I have a lot more freedom to play with motors and input speeds and no matter what I do it'd be hard to fuck it up beyond repair.