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Hi Steve. I had the same problem the first time I dismantled my tailstock. The problem was rust between the handle boss and the screw shaft. I managed by holding he tailstock by the handle and gently...

Can you not use a fixed steady to support the end of the piece?
Mike

Hi Mbole,
It is good to hear that it all went well and the fitting of the bearings to the spindle was straightforward.
When I did the bearing change I had misgivings about whether I had everything...

Hi Mbole,
When I fitted the taper bearings I also changed the spindle from one with an 80mm flange to one with a 100 mm flange. I was able to work on the 100mm spindle using the 80mm already mounted...

Hi Mbole,
I spent a long time checking and rechecking the bearing dimensions before I made the washers to ensure that they were correct. After your posting I checked again and agreed with the 1.25...

Hi mbole,
I have just spent 2 hours stripping my spindle to check the washer sizes and they are in fact 1.25mm thickness. I made an error when I put the page on my website and copied the error when...

It is easy to upgrade the 3" chuck on the minilathe to a 4" chuck using an adaptor plate. The 4" 3jaw chuck will hold work up to 3.75" in diameterwith the outside jaws. Look on the littlemachineshop...

Hi Danny,
I cannot think of an easy way to measure the raceway to raceway distance with any accuracy.
I think if you take sensible precautions to prevent damage that the bearings can be pulled on...

Hi Fragger,
I used narrow belts for my conversion and these require quite a high tension in order to transmit power. If I went with a two pulley system I think the loading on the motor bearings...

Tex VA, Thanks for your kind words
Mike

Hi Dave,
As already pointed out the belt drive kit is intended for the minimill not the micromill.
I have fitted a belt drive to my micromill that works very well. It is so much quieter and provide...

Hi Danny,
I have fitted taper roller bearings to my minilathe. I avoided most of the problems with the internal spacers by making up two washers 1.5 mm thick so that the bearings are effectively the...

I have made a toolpost mounted drill using a flexible shaft. I started out thinking that perhaps I could use a Dremel type shaft but the bearings were awful. I purchased a flexible shaft designed for...

Hi Jeremy,
The starter kit from LMS looks quite good and should get you going fairly quickly.
Mike

Hi Jeremy,
I cannot really help regardig where to by tools from since I am on the other side of the pond. However, Littlemachineshop has a very good reputation and you would probably be alright...

Hi Jeremy,
Congratulations on aquiring a minilathe.
I would warn you against buying cheap brazed carbide tooling. My initial experiences with my minilathe were not good-see here:
Initial...

The gears provided with your lathe enable the feed speed to be varied. Normally the lathe is supplied with the gears already set up for fine feed and the other gears can be used to provide faster...

The slowest feed rate using standard gears is with a 20/80/20/80 gear combination. There are two ways to get a slower feed. The first is to build a fine feed module such as described by Richard...

Hi Fast01,
Thanks for the kind words. Both the step pulleys and the timing pulley started life as rough aluminium castings that were then machined to shape. They could equally well have been...

Have a look at the Mike Porter style of burner. I have a small furnace and use this type of burner and it easily melts a litre of aluminium in 20 minutes. If you are interested full details can be...

You could always make your own conversion. I did it on my X1 as shown here:
Mill belt drive conversion - mikesworkshop
Mike

I would also suggest you look at these sites:

GadgetBuilder's MiniLathe Site

mikesworkshop - Introduction

Thanks, I have now convinced myself that I have a 20 degree pressure angle gear. My method is described here:
http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/change-gear-pressure-angle.html
Mike

Does anyone have a good way of measuring the pressure angle of gears?
I have tried measuring the curvature of gear teeth, from photographs and using a USB microscope and then using Ivan Laws...

A good solution for mounting digital calipers on the long axis of the minilathe can be found here:
http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com

Hi, Colin,
It was made on an X1! I guess you mean how would the machining time have been if made on an X2. I have no experience of larger machines but given that the X2 is more powerful and probably...

Hi Colin,
I purchased my mill with the extended table. This gives plenty of room for quite large objects and the travel is almost the full length of the table.
Here is a pic of my latest project, a...

Hi Colin,
You can see a pic of my latest project, a 50 mm boring head at:
http://i15.tinypic.com/4gqomll.jpg
This was entirly constructed on my minilathe and X2 mill.
Kind regards
Mike

Hi Colin,
I have an X1 mill and I am more than satisfied with it. There are limitation on the size of parts that can be machined but the biggest limitation is that it will not make big cuts in one...