anyone play with lathes?

Now I want a lathe, but I have two mills in my garage and no room for a lathe, some day

 

I bought two sets of the DRO's. I installed one on my mill. I also bought a digital tach but have not installed it yet. I'm in the middle of re-organizing my garage. My wife doesn't like metal chips in her laundry area. Go figure.



When all is done I will convert it to a 4 axis CNC. I have the parts needed and the plans for the mounts but will have to redesign them for the larger spindle motors. I have taken a lot of fusion 360 classes while in lock down and feel I am ready to start re-designing them. I should be able to cut them out of aluminum in my shapeoko CNC with a lot of time.

 

What Fusion 360 Classes you taking? Titans of CNC?

Started using Fusion 360 a few years ago, great program and it works well for the parts we make. Watched many videos and learned the along the way. Made many parts for my truck, Dual Battery Bracket, also 3d printed some jaws but did not work out long term was using cf nylon. All my tailgate locks are now in Fusion 360 as of this week.

Anyway like where you are headed on the mill, can't wait to see pictures

 

I have taken a bunch of Fusion 360 classes on Pluralsight. My work is paying for unlimited classes right now.

So far I have mostly made brackets and stuff like that. Nothing real complicated. Like the brackets to hold aluminum covers for the DRO to keep the chips out.





I put the lathe on a toolbox to clean it up and hold all the bits and parts for the mill and the lathe. It's also easily movable, part of the garage cleanup thing.

 

Why are you cutting into the vice???

 

No, no. It was off. Look at the copper DRO cover to the right.

 

Can you use any lathe for wood turning?

 

Technically you can, but the metal lathes don't like all the dust.