Benefits of having a Lathe

[DAPPH]

I also really want one, I keep thinking of things I could make with one, but I also have never used one. While that might shout out "learning opportunity" to some, I suspect it is more sensible to not buy one.

It give's you the opportunity to ask for Workshop Practice series books for fathers day ,your birthday , Crimbo , The new year and any other day of your life.

Books such as " Lathework a complete course " #34 by Harold Hall ISBN code 978-185486-230-3
Then once you have the basics of safety & useage under your belt , " The worlds your lobster " .

 

[optima21]

I bought a lathe then decided I needed to practice how to use one, so I made this from a set of castings

and thats the days before I had a milling machine, so the milling was done on the lathe.

One of the wires on my up and over garage door snapped last week so I started to change the wires and cones as the old ones were over 10 years old so watching on youtube it should be a 5 to 10 minute job looking at the videos on there. This was not the case and if it could go wrong it did go wrong and the closing mechanism ended up being completely stripped, so while it was in pieces I decided to make some new nylon bushes as the one in the mechanism had worn though. at this stage I could have bought some for arround £7.50 and they would have been delivered by the end of this week. having some nylon though I decided to make my own

marked up on nylon plate and the centre holes drilled

mounted on a bolt in a collet chuck to turn down to a round shape

the the outside turned to size

and then bored out

old vs new, with the new ones being much long and having thicker shoulder too, as you can see the old ones were a bit thin in places as they are 30 years old

and all assembled, just needing the spring to be tensioned.

so without a lathe I wouldnt have been able to do that on the same day and the bushes might last longer too than standard ones.

 

[DAPPH]

I bought a lathe then decided I needed to practice how to use one, so I made this from a set of castings

and thats the days before I had a milling machine, so the milling was done on the lathe.

One of the wires on my up and over garage door snapped last week so I started to change the wires and cones as the old ones were over 10 years old so watching on youtube it should be a 5 to 10 minute job looking at the videos on there. This was not the case and if it could go wrong it did go wrong and the closing mechanism ended up being completely stripped, so while it was in pieces I decided to make some new nylon bushes as the one in the mechanism had worn though. at this stage I could have bought some for arround £7.50 and they would have been delivered by the end of this week. having some nylon though I decided to make my own

marked up on nylon plate and the centre holes drilled

View attachment 346790

mounted on a bolt in a collet chuck to turn down to a round shape

View attachment 346791

the the outside turned to size

View attachment 346792

and then bored out

View attachment 346793

old vs new, with the new ones being much long and having thicker shoulder too, as you can see the old ones were a bit thin in places as they are 30 years old

View attachment 346794

and all assembled, just needing the spring to be tensioned.

View attachment 346795

so without a lathe I wouldntt have been able to do that on the same day and the bushes might last longer too than standard ones.

Lube the bushes with locksmith's graphite powder out of it's puffer bottle and they will see in the next century .

I've done a fair few doors new & refurbishing
When I did my own garage door refurbish the only stop pin I could find to go through the tensioning rod was an old Philips screwdriver which was a very comfortable sliding fit . It worked better than a new OEM stop pin as I had a handle to grab hold of .

Nowadays as the spinal probs have got worse I've had to have a motorised fob controlled insulated roller door put in with an external manual override incase of power cuts and a dead stop low sown photo electric cell safety switch

 

[Farside]

Those cheap Chinese brass connectors are a PIA , the tollerances are bad so bad they fly apart a lot of the time. and they won't fit any other type of fitting properly that looks similar .

I had to bin a dozen or more of them & get the more precision Hozelock 's . Started off with Hozelock plastic ones but over time they died , cracked or the one way vale in some refused to free off . so I ended up with the more expensive Hozelock metal & plastic ..most are now in their 9 th year so paying extra price has worked out well for me.

I've had plenty use out of the Aldi brass Hozelock-alike connectors, including them being run over plenty times by the postie.
They just sit out in all weathers, but I make sure they don't have the stoplock valves in them in case of frost damage.
Bonus - every time I buy a pack there's always another couple of other things along with them.

 

[DAPPH]

I've had plenty use out of the Aldi brass Hozelock-alike connectors, including them being run over plenty times by the postie.
They just sit out in all weathers, but I make sure they don't have the stoplock valves in them in case of frost damage.
Bonus - every time I buy a pack there's always another couple of other things along with them.

All my crap brass connectors came out of B&Q circa 2006 @ 50p to 80 p each depending what you brought ....... perhaps it was a different manufacturer. Mr Hang Low instead of Mr Won Hunglow