Why I bought a lathe

[pjf134]

Yea I bought a lathe to fix things too, which the wife has no idea why I need it. I try to explain but she just gives me a dumb look and says what's it do and I get her more confused. One of these days I hope she will just stop asking.
Paul

[stevec]

I remember the comment from a woman taking a tour of a machine shop. When she asked the guide what a machinist was doing on a mill the gide said he's making a gear. She replied "I didn't know you could make gears I thought you had to buy them".

[Sunset Machine]

I have two lathes. How could anyone go through life without a lathe?

[f350ca]

(04-22-2012, 09:05 AM)Sunset Machine Wrote: I have two lathes. How could anyone go through life without a lathe?

I have two as well. When you see the unfortunate many that don't you soon realize why there are so many problems in the world.
Greg

[mikecwik]

(04-21-2012, 10:20 PM)pjf134 Wrote: Yea I bought a lathe to fix things too, which the wife has no idea why I need it. I try to explain but she just gives me a dumb look and says what's it do and I get her more confused. One of these days I hope she will just stop asking.
Paul

a couple came into my work the other day and bought a atv. it was for the husband and the wife said he is getting this and im getting a diamond. of what use is a diamond i asked her knowing in her case it is completely useless but as you already know the point wasnt taken.

some people waste their entire life trying to find items that are more useless than they are.

im lucky my woman loves tools. oh, you could throw gas on that fire.....

[Sunset Machine]

(04-22-2012, 09:44 AM)f350ca Wrote:

(04-22-2012, 09:05 AM)Sunset Machine Wrote: I have two lathes. How could anyone go through life without a lathe?

I have two as well. When you see the unfortunate many that don't you soon realize why there are so many problems in the world.
Greg

<chuckle> I think we forgot our smilies..

One of my first projects was a ring gauge for my wife. A long, tapered thing with a knurled handle marked out for various ring sizes. It will fix a squished ring, or make a smaller one a bit bigger. All of a sudden machine tools made sense to her.

_

[aametalmaster]

Nice job. I have always wanted a lathe and mill since i did spend parts of 6 years in my schools metal shops. Then went to work in my dads welding shop where i could have used a lathe. We built trailers and i sold lots of trailer hitch balls and i looked at them and saw they were turned from bar stock and knew someday i could build them too. Well i did make one LOL...Bob

[doubleboost]

The garage i worked at since leaving school had a lathe milling machine Cylinder boring bar .
Surface grinder tig welder in fact all the toys
Sadly the owner retired
My present employer has no toys
So i had to get my own
John

[tlfamm]

I went "lathe crazy" as a high-school freshman, but really could do nothing but read about them. Later, in the army, I purchased a new Unimat, and did a few things with it but ultimately college, career, marriage etc. caused machine-tool interests to fade into the background.

About eight years ago I gave the Unimat to my son, and he used it regularly, eventually deciding he wanted something bigger. During his 18-month selection process, he regularly talked about various machine-tool brands to me - frankly it went in one ear and out the other - but he persisted to the point that my own interest was slowly rekindled.


Upshot: he's equipped with a Precision Matthews 11" lathe and their biggest benchtop mill, and I'm equipped with a 12" Grizzly lathe and their now-discontinued RF45 clone.

But my equipment sits in the middle of a garage undergoing a major reno, and is really not useable right now.


So, I'm still reading, but nowadays we have blogs, so more sources of vicarious machine-tool experience.

[Dave J]

Hi,
I love this subject when it comes up. I remember when I bought my self a new mill which cost me $5200 and family and friends would say, have you got jobs lined up to get your money back?

I would reply with, it's a hobby, are you going to make money on that $20,000 bike, $50,000 boat, $3,500+ golf clubs or whatever it was they where into?
Of course they would say no, then I ask them why should my hobby be different to yours and have to make money? This sort of sat them back and made them think.

People have this perception that because it's a machine and you can make things with it, you need to make money off it like a business, but they all come to me to fix there hobby toys never the other way around, funny that. LOL

If I won a boat or something like that in a raffle tomorrow, I would sell it strait away before loosing it's value to buy more tools. My interest is in the shed.

As for diamonds and stuff like that I see no value what so ever. I made my wife simple matching 316 SS rings on the lathe as I grew out of my old wedding ring and she loves it more than the original one because I made it and they are matching.
She showed the ladies at bowls who all wanted to buy one, but like I said to her they are a one off for me and her, I don't want every one having one the same one or similar.

Dave