Scott and Lee!

[kwgeorge]

Well guys I went and pulled the trigger. I have to tell you though it did not go as planed. We were up in Houston and decided to stop by Harbor Freight so I could look at the Mills since they had both versions on display that I was interested in. I had not ordered the lathe yet and while at Harbor Freight I ran in to this;

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45861

It is very similar to the style lathes I grew up using just smaller but I decided that I really liked the larger capacity as I feel it will allow me to do more of what I have in mind. So just questioning one of the people there the wife asked if they had it in stock. You have to understand that HF never has anything I am looking for in stock so I was shocked when the guy checked and found they did have one that was on hold but the guy never came to get it. The wife said, well if that is what you want you should get it! Next thing you know I am paying for it and were on are way to have them load it in the wife’s SUV. It is all boxed in a wooden crate and looks undamaged from the outside but I can hardly wait to get it in the shop. Unfortunately the box is marked at over 300lbs even though the web site says 229.4 lbs. So I have to wait till tomorrow when my kid is here to help me. The display shows that it comes with both styles of the steady rests. Can’t wait to tear into the box! I will have to hold off on the mill till late February though. This is very exciting! I may have to go sleep in the car with the crate tonight.

[mudder]

Dude,

You're a real hump! You just have to go and show us up don't ya?
I hereby take back all the nice things I ever said about you [}]


Good for you Kenneth. I'm glad you got what you really wanted and I hope it works as good as you want it to.



Mudder

[Stytooner]

I know that you can't read this right now, but when you get back in the house from tucking your crate in for the night, you can read it then. [8D] Excellent score. I was kinda wanting a bigger lathe myself, but I will just buy the 7x12 from Cummins this time. My father in law gave me a good price on mine. He wants it bad. I showed him how well it turns pens and let him play on it a while. He's already hooked. He isn't computer savy, so I figgured this was the best way to handle the trade, basically. I will wind up with one just like yours, Scott.
I know what feeling you are having, Ken. I hope you can sleep tonight. []
I did score a sandblasting cabinet, benchtop model from HF today. Had a sandblaster a while now, but can't use it for small stuff without a cabinet. This will save me from having to sand all those splitters.

[Scottydont]

Nice score ya' bum! OK Ken, what kind of meds are ya' slippin' to the wife?

[kwgeorge]

Thanks guys I am pretty excited but I am trying to be nice and not wake everyone up as my wife will yell because it’s not even daylight yet. The funny thing is that I have been wanting a lathe for over 20 years that I can remember. I always seem to run into some project or something that I run into a roadblock on and I think “if I had a lathe this would not be a problem” I have even researched used ones and shopped around several times in the past but just never bought one. My wife knows all this and she was very supportive of me finally getting one. The funny think is that she was concerned last night about protective gear I needed to be wearing when using this new lathe! Personally I think the wood lathe is more dangerous but we wont mention that to her.

Did some surfing last night and found the G4000 on the Grizzly site and it appears to be the exact same lathe. I went ahead and downloaded the manual from them and read it. I found a place on the net that sells metal at a pretty good price;

http://www.industrialmetalsales.com/...Round_Bar.html

I am looking at 3” Aluminum Round Bar right now as it will make all the parts that I want for the Grizzly wood lathe for right now. My first projects are an 2” with 1” bore pulley, a adapter to allow me to mount a hand wheel on Grizzly and a custom screw chuck I have dreamt up. Kind of funny that I bought a lathe to support another lathe.

[Stytooner]

I usually buy drops off ebay when I need some aluminum stock. They have some good deals. Online metals is another source that I deal with when I have to. They do have large inventory and fair prices. No whiz bang deals though.
I bought two metal 3" handwheels from mcmaster Carr for $5 each to replace the one on the Mini-lathe. I know I could make the myself, but the hunk of aluminum needed for them would cost $10 easy. They were zinc cast.
Alls not said and done with my FIL yet. There may still be an upgrade in my future.
I have noticed that you don't see very many of these lathes for sale that are used. Folks seem to hang onto these.
We gonna be seeing some tutorials? [8D]

[mudder]

Ken,

If you like to use good lathe's you would drool at what we use at work.
We have 8 Hardinge Lathe's (HLV's) of which, two of them are chuckers!
We also have a huge Monarch with a 16" swing.
If I need to do anything really serious I'll take it to work and sneak it in there.
We also have 2 Bridgeports, 3 Prototrak's, a Fidal machining center, couple dozen Barber Coleman hobbers, 5 Vertical gear shapers, 2 surface grinders (1 is a huge Okamoto), 1 centerless grinder, and 3 Gleason Conical Bevel generators (The Gleasons are my babies, very few of us left that can run them)


Mudder

[kwgeorge]

It is really kind of funny the more I read and start looking around the more I start remembering. I am actually calling the parts by there proper name! I have dug out my old 0-4” Micrometer set and my threading gauges and so on. I would be happy to do some tutorials as I go. My Dad taught me how to thread and that is really what I need to come up to speed with first as several of my projects require threads.

My problem today got all screwed up as my in-laws decided they wanted a bigger refrigerator and my wife decided she wanted the old one for the garage so guess what I have been doing all day!

Scott, I used a 1952 Monarch from an old Nava ship. It had about a 3” bore through the spindle and a 24” chuck. I don’t rembember other specs on it. I also have used several Vertical Bullard turret lathes and gear swap Lablonds (sp) also you have the Cincinnati mills and so on. I have not touched a metal lathe in 25 years and have never used any CNC equipment. This should really be a lot of fun.