I've been looking to get myself a lathe for some time and CNC it. But it seems that finding an old cheap machine with good ways in my price range (cheap). So I've been wondering about the practically of building my own. I've really only given thought to the ways. Would THK linear bearings work ok for ways? I'm kind of at a loss to figure out why they wouldnt. But I've never seen it done so maybe theres a reason.

I'm thinking about a machine something with something like a 10" swing and 40" between centers.

That would be a pretty huge machine. Do you have a Mill that can machine the bed to accept the linear was?

Linear ways are used in most of the modern CNC lathes and other machines.

Have a look at Swede's www.5bears.com, for ideas, as he built a nice mill with linear ways.

have a look at this
http://www.compucutters.com/machines/compucutter/compucutter.htm
it is a lathe ,a small one, but a lathe non the less.
as the basis for a larger machine (but maybe not 40") it might be an interesting
project or might give you some ideas.
mike.

Well in terms of the bed. I''ve been thinking just a decent piece of tooling plate, mic6 or whatever. Should be reasonable enough in terms of flatness if properly supported no?
some sort of adjustment could be built in to remove any warp that might be in it, though there should be none, but we're probably talking .0001"s here.

Maybe I'm crazy, as I've never mounted a thk rail. But it seems to me that you need 2 rails, possible more. Mount your first to the plate base with milled holes. Possibly in a channel with a shoulder for alignment on one rail. much like how swede has done his mill. Then the second can just be dialed in with an indicator, pretty easily I would think.

I'm not so much interested in continuing a discussion of how it could be built but more so if it is practical. The loading in a lathe must be different then a mill. In a mill you are always exerting force directly over the same spot (provided you dont rotate the head). Meaning that all the forces center in the middle of the rails. Even if the loseness of the balls in the trucks on the thk rail was enough to let the axis twist slightly or be shoved to one side it doesnt really matter that much in a mill, it would just show as backlash and that'd more or less be that. In a lathe I'm wondering if the cutting forces can be absorbed by the rails, will they allow more chatter then a conventional design. Should there be some sort of other guide system used instead or in addition?

Does the machine really need to be a 2 tons beast? Why cant a piece of tooling plate, some rails, a carriage, cross slide, and headstock be enough? I'd really like to make a light(ish) machine on the order of no more then 500lbs if thats possible. I'm willing to deviate from my spec's in terms of swing over the crossslide, but 30" or more between centers seems pretty reasonable. And I figure convential machine swinger over crossslide and cnc machine swing over crossslide dont really have to be looked at in the same way. With a manual machine you have a compound eating up a good 2" and a generally really unoptimized design imo.

Any data on what sort of forces are actually imparted by/on the tool to make reasonable cuts in something like stainless steel would probably be helpful. I've done enough turning on a manual lathe to call myself proficient at it. But I am still woefully ignorant of just how much force might be applied at the tool.

Anywho, I could be crazy.

There is a reason the bed of a 40" turning lathe bed is a few hundred Kg of cross braced cast iron. I can't see how a peice of guage plate with THK railed screwed to it could ever resist the forces, but that is just a gut feeling.

What are you aiming to make with it?

What would you use as a headstock? It would be hard to come close to the utility of a chinese import 10x lathe for the prices these things go for.

Even if the plate is within tenths over 40", how you are you going to support it such that it stays that way under varying forces? By the time you are done you may end up fabricating some cross section that’s as heavy and complex a typical cast iron bed.

How are going to get said superstructure flat to begin with – ie if you’re attaching a 40” piece to the superstructure, it will bend to the superstructure. Either scraping or a big mill as Mark suggested. Then you've got all kinds of internal stressed that will keep pulling it out shape and you have only 1/2 the dampening effect of cast iron.

I don’t mean to discourage, only to point out that presumably the 2000 pound monster was also engineered and therefore it’s not going to be easy to maintain performance while reducing weight AND going with a less desirable material (rolled vs. cast) simply through better design. My lathe is 1000 lbs on a cast iron stand and there are lots of times I wish for something beefier.

What about the approach seen on some high end wood lathes? A large cylinder with brackets and ways welded to it then filled with sand to dampen vibration (or my fav, epoxy and granite which would contribute strength as well as dampening).

Strictly based on personal experience, 30” – 40” between centres would be good, although 99.9% of time you are working within a foot of the headstock. I would definitely would want more swing on a machine this size,. Space over the compound has not been an issue – you might turn 3’ lengths and 12” dia, but at the same time?

I am faced with the same questions on my mental (both a noun and adjective) designs. Ultimately approaching it like an engineer and figuring out in forces, vibration, deflection would provide the answer vs. anecdotes which it sounds like you want to do. It would be great to find more resources on engineering for non engineers, but here’s a couple of links…
Here’s some basic stuff on cutting forces: http://www.hytec.com/Designin.pdf
Here’s lectures from MIT machine design course: http://pergatory.mit.edu/2.75/index.htm

Here you have a guy that did it.

http://mitglied.lycos.de/dieter096/photoalbum.html

It's hosted on Lycos, so there will be a storm of commercials, but you get a glimpse in between all the s**t.

Flatness, flatness, flatness, and bed support is all anyone wants to talk about. Well It seems to me that something like a concrete base could be poured and leveled. If that isnt flat enough I wonder if there is some sort of top coating liquid that could be applied that has a low viscosity that will harden level. If not one could spend hours or days leveling the surface after the pour. Either way a the plate could be secured to something reasonably solid.

I know a concrete base sort of throws out my idea about light and portable, but who cares about the concrete base, if I move I can always pour another one. And frankly, with a cnc machine for hobby use, why do I need a 36" high slab, why not just bolt the plate right on the floor after leveling it nicely. Sure it might suck for access, but if I made one part a day on it average over its lifetime I'd be highly suprised.

Even with an 80/20 subframe option or something similar I dont see why a mill is going to help. So you've attached your rails to the frame and now the plate is bent. How's a mill going to help, you cant take a pass with the rails installed, and without them the plate returns to normal. Scraping the thk rails really doesnt seem like a practical solution to me. So how would this operation work?

If the ways are not supported, they will flex under load (while cutting). This will lead to very low accuracy and cutting problems like crazy. Linear ways by themselves have very little support - they would sag if you suspended them at the ends only.

A person could build the entire lathe out of wood and use linear ways, but that doesn't mean it will perform good.

I believe I saw that you were going to cut cast iron with this lathe. If that is the case, then you will surely want to isolate the linear ways from the cutting area. Cast iron will create plenty of very fine "Dust" which will get into the bearing packs and ruin them in pretty short order.

It all comes down to what you are willing to accept for performance in the end. If you want performance and accuracy, you will have to build the machine to provide those attributes.

I am in the process of thinking through either a CNC conversion or building a lathe from scratch. The biggest problem with making a machine tool from scratch is machining all of the parts properly to provide the strength and rigidity that is needed for a precise lathe.

So you've attached your rails to the frame and now the plate is bent. How's a mill going to help, you cant take a pass with the rails installed, and without them the plate returns to normal. Scraping the thk rails really doesnt seem like a practical solution to me. So how would this operation work?

you don't scrape or mill the rails, you scrape or mill whatever they are being fixed to. obviusly consistent distance between centres and bed is important for a lathe and therefore you need a flat surface on which to bolt the rails to maintain this distance. I know i'm i stating the obvious here, but that little literally underlying fact will determine the performace of the machine no matter how much money you plough into it up top.

the concrete base has merit, but i would want to build it regular height - may with a hollow core? I don't know how much movement if any concrete has over time but that would be a consideration. steel strips on the concrete that you scrape in?

Linear bearings and rails are made for accurate guiding - so - Heck YES! I say go for it.

The rails will not offer any support - as previous posts emphasize, so I also suggest that you make sure you have a very stout, accurate base structure to attach them to.

IDEA - I have used Moglice (epoxy) to "pot" in a flat surface on smaller projects with excellent results. If you have a stiff structure that's relatively flat - even within .250" or so, you can pot it upside down on a known flat surface (granite table) to duplicate the flatness of the master surface onto your structure. Then mount your rails directly to the duplicated surface in the normal manner. The epoxy surface is extremely strong and stable.

I don't like the concrete idea, but it's an idea. I would expect you to run into a host of issues - especially with regards to attaching other mechanical elements in the future. I would also expect moisture retention to create issues with corrosion, among other issues.

Good luck - and post your progress!

Since you probably won't save any money building it yourself....the question is "do you just want to have the satisfaction of knowing you built it?"

Just use hard chrome round bars like i did; just go bigger

argh, i just lost me entire post
lets try this again.


re: everyone, the least I suggested in terms of support for the rails was a thick piece of tooling plate. As people dont seem to think this is enough I'll consider that answered. But I'll have no more of this silliness about unsupported ways or wooden ways or ways made out of dead parrots as if I ever talked about any of the above, because I didn't.

re: milling te plate. Stop trying to mill the mounting plate, its mic6. Its as flat as its going to get. Any deflection caused be mounting it to its base or mounting the rails to it or anything else to anything else will not be fixed by milling it. Because you can't unless you have a giant surface grinder or something to put the whole thing on, and even then thats not very practical. The rails can be tested with a dial indicator, and shimmed, or plate scraped a bit, or more reasonably the plate itself can be shimmed or adjusted from its mounting base.

re: cast iron, icky poo. never. Never ever ever will I ever think about cutting cast iron or write about it. This machine in practice will see mostly aluminum and some stainless steel.

re: concrete, I know people dont like it. But it seems to me its got to be a pretty good way to base a machine, it's alot cheaper then making a metal frame, less work in the end I think as well. Its incredibly heavy and once set very stable. It should provide a good amount of vibration dampenning due to the sheer mass of it I would hope. I dont know what anyone else would suggest, I've seen some welded frames and 80/20 and such, but it seems to me that unless its a big honkin cast iron behemoth of a frame its really not going to be strong enough to have tha characteristics we're looking for anyways. Maybe I'm wrong about this as I've never built any sort of support frame and I can't weld.

re: buying vs making. Well a real cnc centre is way too expensive, big and heavy for my hobby use and converting a new manual is a waste as I see it. I'm really only interested in having a simple headstock, some spindle speeds, a good sized through hole, a good solid spindle, and a good set of ways. The rest of the machine could be left on the factory floor as far as I'm concerned because I'd me tearing most of it out to cnc it anyways. A used machine with good ways, a good headstock but something else buggered, like the feed or threading rod would be nice and cheap but those arent exactly falling off trees around here.

re: chromed round bars, whats the advantage. You have to support them just the same and its even more of a pain in the butt to support them than it is the thk rails. I dont think they'd slide as nicely. The cost isnt cheap. Unsupported they'd sag and bend badly.

Regarding the base, I'd entertain the following:

Go with the Mic-6 seeing as its as flat as you require. Then support/truss the underside with 80/20 flat extrusions. Epoxy the extrusions to the plate. Then fill the extrusions with something that wont move or corrode (epoxy?)... If you're worried about differential expansion between expoxy and aluminum, you can always bolt through after everything is set. With this setup, you can have the dampening effects of expoxy (which can be better than concrete) but in a manageable package that won't weigh a ton.

But what do I know? :p

re: chromed round bars, whats the advantage. You have to support them just the same and its even more of a pain in the butt to support them than it is the thk rails. I dont think they'd slide as nicely. The cost isnt cheap. Unsupported they'd sag and bend badly.


better look; and this design is based on 35yeas of experiance being a Tool and Diemaker with many many years of custom machine making; but go your own way if you want
Cost $30 bucks

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8928

@Dberndt:Regular Concrete takes around 2 years before it stops shrinking. Polymer concrete is the one used for machine beds.

@Cbass: Aluminum as trusses on a steel plate: You can bond it, screw it, whatever. What you will get is a bimetal construction. And we know what happens with those: they bend under temperature differences. When the expansion rate is very different like aluminum on steel, it bends more per degree.

Personally I like the looks of Stevie's lathe.....I would build that just for the looks....did you do a write up on this build??

Personally I like the looks of Stevie's lathe.....I would build that just for the looks....did you do a write up on this build??

No not really; well the old thread is still there way back; and there is a story in the many posts; but the pics are gone

build it
i personaly doubt it will cut stainless with any conviction but it's a start point
and i think it may surprise a few
btw stevie canadia( somewere on this site built a nice looking lathe in your style)
after all we don't move by standing still.
do it
mike

Stevie, its a nice looking machine and one of the machines that inspired me to consider making one from scratch. But its a bit smaller then I'm looking for, and is your carriage not wire edm'd to size so that it fits the middle rail exactly that way when the bars flex it just hits the solid and better supported base? Making a precision rail and then wire edm'ing the carriage to fit exactly, or maybe grinding it, either way seems like alot of hassle, especially since most people dont have a wire edm machine kicking around.

Also I'd like to know where you get that chromed rod so cheap, the thompson(sp?) rods for their linear bearings seem to cost an arm and a leg. What brand/supplier did you use?

re: cutting stainless with any conviction, well its a cnc machine for hobby use, if it could take off 10 thou per pass with a good surface finish that should be enough to get under any work hardening in the material and also enough to satisfy me.

I did not use the wire to make the tail stock; I had left the company by then that had it
I just drilled and reamed the holes for the rails; then milled away the stock to fit the bed
I got the chrome shafting from Motion Canada; but there is almost a motion bearing place in any mid sized city in NA
It is Thompson shafting 0.500dia; and they drilled/tapped the mounting holes for the $30

My thoughts were if you can mill a step in the tooling plate; you could mount a bar stock also milled like my bed; but one mounted on each side; like the first idea you had; but this would be stronger
If the bottom plate was say 1 or 1 1/2 thick; then a couple of sq bars say 2" or even 3" sq could be bolted from below
The round chrome stock is fitted to what arebasically rabbits in each outside corner; I used 0.500 chrome shaft so my rabbits are 0.259 -0.260 deep each way; or just past center; this ensures they dont ever want to roll up out of the corner underload
Keep in mind my lathe has run every night for the past year; at least 2 hours; most weekend it runs both days min 9 hours
I have had not one problem with the system

Steve

Stevie, does the machine just see brass, making those model gun barrels? Brass is relatively free machining?

Also, a bit OT, but I dont really get why people would want brass guns for their models? I can't imagine any of the real ships had brass guns or brass coloured guns? The must get painted anyways, so wheres the advantage?
Not trying to put down your product, just not being a modeller I guess I don't see what the advantage is.

Just trying to help here....

deburndt,
When a scale model is made (consider architectural buildings) materials selected are rarely the exact materials used when constructing the actual building. Ease of construction and costs of miniaturizing the exact duplicate would be prohibitive. It is the detail one can achieve by using "substitute" materials. Think of the higher cost tooling needed to penetrate a steel item this small.
Stevie knows that your machine will be bigger, but was only offering ideas for an "enlarged" version.

Bloy

bloy2004, ok, I Understand, but why brass? Cant the same accuracy be achieved in plastic, are the molded parts inferior some how? Wouldnt all that metal up top make it kind of top heavy?

I'm not digging at stevies lathe in any way here, and i appreciate the comments he's made, as the discussion furthers thought on the subject and thats always good. I'm just going OT here because I dont really get it.

Cant the same accuracy be achieved in plastic, are the molded parts inferior some how?

Stevie has posted some pics that show how small they actually are. I doub't they could be turned in plastic. He also showed some pics comparing his to the molded ones. His had far more detail. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of these pics on his website.

You can see the plastic comparison here
http://www.modelbarrels.com/files/350fullset.jpg

I find brass much less abrasive than Aluminum; over a cutting tools life before needing a re-grind
Also Brass is very Nautical anyway; real ships are full of brass because of the salt
I offer what people want; they like brass; and my barrels are way finer detailed than anything offered by the kit makers
In fact i make many master barrels for the limited run kit makers; they use them to make the molds

Over the course of the last 12 months; I have one of the biggest data bases of ship barrel drawings and details in the model industry

actually tomorrow i have a shipment going to Universal Studios; I feel that is a big pat on the back

Congratulations on that Stevie. It is way cool to see "one of us" find a niche market and be successful in it.

Do you artificially age barrels also?

Hi Mark

I can blacken them if needed; but most customers do it themselves