04-03-2013, 08:04 PM
In our last episode, I showed you my Warner & Swasey #3 Turret Lathe.
Now that I had two lathe's, I pretty much had everything covered with regards to the type of working I was doing and wanted to bring in, but my thirst for doing more was growing.
Don't get me wrong.....I'm not one to always want to get the latest and greatest toy, I was just tired of cranking handles.....all day looooong......
Tired of getting hot chips down my shirt.....all day loooong.....
Tired of getting splashed with coolant.......all day loooong......
Tired of standing hunched over the toolpost only to see the threading tool crash into the shoulder because I was daydreaming with my hand on the feed knob while watching.......all day looooong.......
Tired of.....OK....I think you get my point.....I was getting FRIGGING tired!
I don't recall how long I had the W&S before the next lathe, but it was and still is a GREAT little lathe. It was only as accurate as you could make it be......no lying about that......the damn dial was what I would call a REFERENCE point......if you know what I mean....but for +/-.005" work, she was a beast!
I quickly got in work better suited for the machine and as the quantities from my customers increased, so did my profit. Once setup, that machine ran great........stock to stop in the turret, ctr, drill, bore, face, turn dia.'s, cutoff.......man......the elbows would be flying about making her go through her paces. It really was a work out running that machine, but boy was it nice to be whipping out parts in a couple minutes rather than several on the engine lathe.
I remember the biggest job I ever did on that machine quantity wise was for 5,000 spacers made from 1018 CRS. They were only about a .750" Dia. with a .500" hole thru and cutoff .250" lg.
I would ctr the stock and drill as deep as I possibly could with a jobbers drill. Then in the monkey block (fancy word for a toolpost in a turret lathe which could hold four tools and index!) I had a face off tool set exactly .250" away, and just slightly longer than my cutoff tool. With this setup, I could simply bring the faceoff tool up to the stock, and by eye face off about .010"/.020" or so off the face, but at the same time, the cutoff tool would start cutting the piece off.
So........it...........went............FAST! I mean, boom......eyeball the faceoff, pull up on the feed handle, face and cutoff all at once......with, just enough time to get a file in there to round the front and back edge, before "PLINK"......the piece would fall into the bed.
We never even bothered to try catching them. I would simply use a little hoe to drag them all out from under the ways and one of the kids or my wife would count them out by the hundreds.
Then the real fun began.......c'sinking the ID......"F" me, that sucked big time!!!
I honestly think it took us longer to c'sink both sides by hand in a drill press.......(you know how hard it is to hold a .250" thick piece in your fingers and keep it from spinning while c'sinking the ID??) than it did to run the parts in the lathe. It was horrible!!
Alas, we triumphed in the end thanks in part to my wife's entire family being over to visit us from Denmark and lending a hand. They actually thought it was fun......God bless them all.......all 14 of them.....who stayed with us for three weeks.........in our three bedroom home.....really though.......one of the best times of our lives, we had a blast when work was done!
So after having a taste of what I considered high quantity production work, I knew for a fact this would indeed.............be the death of me!....as I could not be expected to keep up that kind of pace for several days in a row. I enjoyed the bigger lot sizes as opposed to onsey, twosey work, but realistically knew it was time to (as the Cajun chef would say) kick it up a notch!!
So we.....my wife and I (always involved in everything I do....not because she runs the show, or I need her approval, we are just always talking about everything we do, whether it's a joint venture or not.....it's just how we are, and it works......bottom line) began thinking about getting into CNC............
To be continued..............
Now that I had two lathe's, I pretty much had everything covered with regards to the type of working I was doing and wanted to bring in, but my thirst for doing more was growing.
Don't get me wrong.....I'm not one to always want to get the latest and greatest toy, I was just tired of cranking handles.....all day looooong......
Tired of getting hot chips down my shirt.....all day loooong.....
Tired of getting splashed with coolant.......all day loooong......
Tired of standing hunched over the toolpost only to see the threading tool crash into the shoulder because I was daydreaming with my hand on the feed knob while watching.......all day looooong.......
Tired of.....OK....I think you get my point.....I was getting FRIGGING tired!
I don't recall how long I had the W&S before the next lathe, but it was and still is a GREAT little lathe. It was only as accurate as you could make it be......no lying about that......the damn dial was what I would call a REFERENCE point......if you know what I mean....but for +/-.005" work, she was a beast!
I quickly got in work better suited for the machine and as the quantities from my customers increased, so did my profit. Once setup, that machine ran great........stock to stop in the turret, ctr, drill, bore, face, turn dia.'s, cutoff.......man......the elbows would be flying about making her go through her paces. It really was a work out running that machine, but boy was it nice to be whipping out parts in a couple minutes rather than several on the engine lathe.
I remember the biggest job I ever did on that machine quantity wise was for 5,000 spacers made from 1018 CRS. They were only about a .750" Dia. with a .500" hole thru and cutoff .250" lg.
I would ctr the stock and drill as deep as I possibly could with a jobbers drill. Then in the monkey block (fancy word for a toolpost in a turret lathe which could hold four tools and index!) I had a face off tool set exactly .250" away, and just slightly longer than my cutoff tool. With this setup, I could simply bring the faceoff tool up to the stock, and by eye face off about .010"/.020" or so off the face, but at the same time, the cutoff tool would start cutting the piece off.
So........it...........went............FAST! I mean, boom......eyeball the faceoff, pull up on the feed handle, face and cutoff all at once......with, just enough time to get a file in there to round the front and back edge, before "PLINK"......the piece would fall into the bed.
We never even bothered to try catching them. I would simply use a little hoe to drag them all out from under the ways and one of the kids or my wife would count them out by the hundreds.
Then the real fun began.......c'sinking the ID......"F" me, that sucked big time!!!
I honestly think it took us longer to c'sink both sides by hand in a drill press.......(you know how hard it is to hold a .250" thick piece in your fingers and keep it from spinning while c'sinking the ID??) than it did to run the parts in the lathe. It was horrible!!
Alas, we triumphed in the end thanks in part to my wife's entire family being over to visit us from Denmark and lending a hand. They actually thought it was fun......God bless them all.......all 14 of them.....who stayed with us for three weeks.........in our three bedroom home.....really though.......one of the best times of our lives, we had a blast when work was done!
So after having a taste of what I considered high quantity production work, I knew for a fact this would indeed.............be the death of me!....as I could not be expected to keep up that kind of pace for several days in a row. I enjoyed the bigger lot sizes as opposed to onsey, twosey work, but realistically knew it was time to (as the Cajun chef would say) kick it up a notch!!
So we.....my wife and I (always involved in everything I do....not because she runs the show, or I need her approval, we are just always talking about everything we do, whether it's a joint venture or not.....it's just how we are, and it works......bottom line) began thinking about getting into CNC............
To be continued..............
