Machinists, learn me a bit

Man I wasn't even looking for machinery, but browsing the Facebook marketplace a nice looking (at least visually in the photos) Southbend 9 415-YA popped up on my feed for $750 just down the road. I'm not sure when I'd even use a lathe but it's awfully temping.

As mentioned here in this thread though, I would have no idea what to look for when checking it out and if it was even worth that price if there was maybe something fundamentally wrong with it.

 

Curious, what are you guys creating/building to justify this machinery?

 

That's kind of the problem with [metal] fabrication - if someone wanted to make a simple wheel spacer in their garage, they more or less need a lathe.

Some people just like to tinker. Same can be said with any hobby!

 

In my case some of it was parts no one makes for a bike no one races any longer. Other stuff has been custom foot controls for the race rig, pedals faces for someone else's race rig, wheel adapters for converting to a different type of steering wheel quick release . That's the joy of having one. You don't need to justify it to anyone and you can make pretty much whatever your machine capabilities and skill set allows you to make.

 

I appreciate the responses. Another big boy toy.

 

You know all the cool shit that companies make for bikes that you can buy? Well, if you invest a shit ton of your money into tools and tooling you can make the same stuff, only it will cost you much more than just buying it lol Just kidding, kinda....

Bike stuff was captive wheel spacers, swingarm spools, steering stem work to adapt a custom made triple , foot pegs, bar end weights, rearset brkts, etc. Bunch more stuff I'm probably forgetting. Mostly now it's just repair parts to keep my old shit going, and making tools to make other things building my capacity and capability up. As soon as the weather lightens up I'm going to start building a large bandsaw mill, so I can mill my own timber from my property. I've also got a couple things I want to make for the SxS (stronger tie rods, build roof racks and a cap to hold a boat) before my spring fishing trip in may.

I've been accumulating and investing in tools for a long time, and have a very capable metal and wood shop at home now. Just wish I had more time to play in it. I've got a list a mile long of stuff I want to design and build. Starting to notice huge chunks of free time coming back to me now that the kids are getting older. They also love spending time building things with me so it's a net win. They learn some skills they can carry with them the rest of their lives, and we get to build some memories and cool stuff in the process.

 

I bought what I bought at the price point I chose to make it cheap enough to get into until I figured out if I was going to be able to learn it and do it. Getting in cheap and getting out cheap was part of my thought process. Now that I know that I am capable of learning it and able to produce something that is a nice final product my next machine purchase has a much high price point for budgeting purposes.

 

Did you narrow down to what you're going to get?

 

For a new lathe Grizzly has Taiwan made stuff in their brand and the resurrected Southbend brand, all descent machines.
Another Taiwan brand to consider, if it was me, would be Eisner.

 

It's down to 2 candidates...

HAAS Super Mini Mill 2 or a Syil X7 Combo.

Pros for the HAAS are of course built here in the U.S. Way overkill for anything I'll do. Cons are HAAS support costs should I ever need them and a slightly higher initial purchase cost.

Pros for the Syil are it at least is a linear rail machine and a BT30 spindle when compared to other stuff out of the Chinese mainland. Siemens 808 can be had so you aren't relying on a Chinese knock off controller or Mach3/4. Cons are it is a Chinese made machine so I am certain it will not perform as well as the HAAS.

The HAAS for me I still deem as overkill for my purposes. The TM-2p and 3p are also considerations I'm just not sure I would ever do anything large enough to warrant the larger travels and additional floor space consumption. Any of it has to run on 220v single phase as I don't want to get into phase convertors if at all possible. I'm not planning on making anything to sell or plans to run a business with this so cost of entry still needs to be reasonable.

 

I remember they got a $100K Haas mill (2007?) at my ex-work, but they didnt want to spend the money on the software/training.....my owner wrote everything in g-code in ms word.......crash city all the time, lol. BAM! "F@ck!" lol. Them endmills were slamming into them beautiful kurt vices all the time.

 

what the fuuuuu

 

That's why I went cheap early. Cheap to repair when I did tell it to do something stupid. I've got a good handle on the Fusion 360 environment and rely mostly on the CAM within that. I can code simple things by hand but frankly if it's something simple I just run the jog wheel on the pendant and MDI into position.

 

Dude, I wish this post had come up a yr ago. i bought it as basket case/pieces, rebuilt/refreshed this grizzly and sold it for what i had in it ($600) just to get it out of my garage. would have been perfect for you to learn on. Came w/ some tooling. I would have shipped it and taken a couple hundred $ loss to get it to a beeber.

 

The dude would put decimal in wrong place, etc.......the codes were a mile long, so no disrespect to him, but man, BAM! should have bought the software, lol. Tore up them 3 vices and blew up a lot of carbide end mills/cutters

 

Nothing wrong with finger caming stuff. I write all my lathe programs in notepad.... Havn't crashed yet....

 

That is same machine as my old Birmingham.

 

it was an OK machine, but I needed more of a 'tool-room' type lathe for what i was doing at the time, and the grizzly just didnt have the 'feel', i didnt trust it. It ran good, but I never used it on anything, other than test cuts to get it aligned.
but for making a triple-tree tube, or polishing fork tubes, and learning, it would have been good.
I only got rid of it cause my mom wanted it out of her garage.

 

With the rapid speeds of modern machinery though I can see how quickly a minor error in the code could get expensive. That said single blocking it and dialing the rapids back for the first few run throughs can save the damage from occurring.

 

Yup, single block, and rapid overide set low for first run through. On production stuff. I also do a lot of onesee twosee stuff that is pretty similar, but just different sizes. ON those I step through the first program to make sure everything is great, then just edit what #'s I need in the control for the next parts and let it rip. Lathe programming is really pretty simple. Much more so than mill stuff IMO

Mill work I don't even look at the code anymore.... Straight from the CAM to the control. I double check the distance to go as I'm coming into the start of the program, and if it all looks good (didn't muck up a tool offset) I let it fly. What I see on the screen is what I'm gonna get in the machine. Got a pretty bullet proof process down after all these years. The only things that worry me are dodgy work/toolholding situations, and sometimes there's not much I can do to get around those. We make some weird shit sometimes.