The hand gestures and camera angle make me think this old tony may have gotten knocked out and woke up with an English accent 😂. Awesome video! Good info

Cheers! My only regret having a Chinese mini lathe is not getting one sooner. It's capability is only limited to It's size and ones imagination. When the material curls off properly there is nothing more satisfying. Great video!

Bloody lot of work.

Fantastic, thank you sir for taking the time to do videos like this. I would consider myself a 1/4 Recreational Machinist, ha. Roughly 15 years ago I bought one of these 7x14 lathes on the used market and used it for just about 2 years and of the hand full to times I used it I did some neat crafting that I could have never done w/o one. Then I sold it and I can't tell you how many times I wish I still had it. About 5 years ago I went looking again, again for a $200 used mini lathe. Gah! I guess I just need to make more money? I missed an opportunity for a Unimat mini mini lathe for only $300 last week locally, with tooling, extras and a custom walnut wood box. Would have been perfect for those occasional small fastener mods I often find myself needed.

Sounds like mini lathes are fantastic once you rebuild the whole thing.... It probably is my only option though....

I really like your comments on Cut Off/Groving tooling and proceedure, I just ordered a new tool and inserts... I can cut off pretty good now but the new tools will probably help.

excellent video

First-time viewer. You did a wonderful job communicating the ins and outs of mini-lathes. Very well-spoken and easy to listen to. thanks for a great show!

👍

How did you acheived that white line on 2:37? If part is anodised before the white paint is put in to the grove.. how did you acheive that there is no smear aroud? And if it is put before, what kind of paint will survive sulfuric acid and sodium hidroxide? I'm looking for method to put black lines on the dial, and anodise it (not blackj, just simple anodising natural silvery colour of aluminium, so it will be more durrable) but lines are very, veeeery thin, so I can not put black paint with brush.. however thin the brush is... Of course.. one possible solution will be to laser etch them, but I'm lookng for something that I can do in my "shop" (and I do not have laser :(

Nice Traser watch. I’ve got one. Check out Marathon. Great Video.

Does using a flat surface in the tailstock pressed against the part help with stability during cutoff when there is no center?

Hmmm.. there is a direct replacement of bearings. I did it years ago.... do not remember bearings designation but I can check. Only one plastic spacer on the spindle should be made again. Only... if inch lates are made with some inch bearings wich I doubth... China work in metrics, and change to imperial only if they absolutly must. For lead screw manulal feed... I made it bit different... Made a handweel that will engadge with one of the change gears for thread cutting. Put 40 and 60 tooth gears, and with 1.5mm pich on the lead screw, you will get exactly 1mm move for one full turn. If you made a scale on the handweel and some kind of "tingy" that will have a line on it, you can move the carriage with reasonoable precision. If you are interested I can send you CAD, it's bit hard to explain by text only... BTW.. nice rewiew, and nice ideas.. I will use some of them 👍

Too pro to bro.

I assume the "mil" you speak about is .001 inch, rather unusual as most people in Europe speak about a "mil" as 1 mm.

Excellent presentation. A delight to find and watch

Why the hell it even needs to be done?! This should be integrated into the LED power supplies.

3:00 What's that cute PIP larva model? :) BTW, you soubd like the Obsidian Ant space guy a bit.

Great video thankyou! I walked into my local UK motorfactors. 1st place I tried. Told them exactly what I wanted it for. No credentials asked for! Ordered a 5L (min purchase) of battery acid, allegedly 60% but I'm going to email the supplier for confirmation as the bottles do not display strength. It comes in 1 litre HDPE bottles. It appears you are using PP (Polypropylene) for your mixing and storage. Have you found any problems with it? I googled and evidently the best storage medium is cross linked HDPE. If PP doesn't get affected by acid or sodium hydroxide, then I'll be buying just that. It comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, ideal for the electrolysis Tank! Also I'm thinking of having on standby, a large bucket of mild alkali in case of splashes onto self. Any suggestion what to use and concentration? Many thanks, D

Lol at “sintered floor sweepings”.

I was thinking if was possible on this container to put a ballbearing and use the filament from the box direct to the 3dprinter. But I dont know if have space to roll

You are the sir Attenborough of 3d print

i cant believe my favorite natgeo narrator voice is a Recreational Machanist. D:

As a machinist with 40 years exp, small lathes work fine *for small parts*. When you are cutting steel bar, the greater the diameter, the greater mini-lathes lose their power. I mean, the range a min-lathe has in terms of capability is very narrow. Becuase of this, I would not buy a mini lathe. I'd rather get a larger one because it's far more robust and cut better and faster than a mini lathe. As what kind of lathe I'd get, it would not be a Chinese made lathe. A vintage lathe like a Logan would be ideal even if it means restoring it.

Ive been 'pimping' my air rifle. Its all covered in bright aluminium parts. Now ive seen this, I'm off to find H2SO4 and Baking soda!

I hate it when people talk with their hands. Especially if it's in place of using their face. If your anonymity is that important, you might want to rethink using KZbin (which is a VISUAL medium). At any rate, I'm not going to sit here taking advice from a pair of waving hands.

Well great video! Saved me $600 at least. I’ll just use a drill and grinder for my work

Could have just found an old rotary phone

Like any tool it does what it is designed to do, but us users push it to its limits and beyond. Can someone who grew up metric help me with this I always assumed I defaulted to fractions of mm as SAE was my first measuring system, and although accurate is using it the wrong way in the right way. Wouldn't this be 24219 micrometers and not 24.129mm? I thought the benefit of metric was never having to use fractions. I work in both, usually depending on what I'm working with, if the car was originally standard I use SAE if it was metric I use metric, with the thought that the next person would probably expect it. I mean most of my cad work has fractions of mm in it but... again I just assumed its because I'm much more comfortable with fractions and native metric users actually stepped down to the next x-meter when it wasn't a whole.

Subscribed for more down to earth straight talking advice!

brilliant vid

Seen many tutorial and guidance videos, your videos are fantastic. Well done.

Most everything mirrored my experience with the exception that mine was worse off to start with. I am not a professional machinist, though I did work maintenance at a large shop and repaired everything. The only two machines in the shop that I could use were the huge format flamecutter and the gear hob. Both were because I had to make them work and bring them into spec when they got hauled in, used and abused by the boss. After getting the gear hob going for a while I was the one that had to set it up and run it because of my math background. I had to make drawings for the machinists to make the blanks because even though I repaired them, I never learned to run the lathes or mills. I did exactly one part on a Leblond out of some bronze. I made a pen that replaced the torch tip on the flamecutter for calibrating the kerf and axis linearity. It was faster, cheaper, and easier to trace on paper than to keep cutting and measuring steel. It was a spring loaded papermate refill cartridge that was held together by a grub screw at the top. OD turning, drills and a hand tap.

Excellent video.

Why should a person need a lathe, just want one is enough.

I have a Sherline mini lathe. I really struggled with parting for the longest time. I would quickly get chatter and it would bind and stall. I eventually found some success with a fairly high feed rate and lots of lubrication. But it was obvious that it still wasn't happy and if I didn't get the feed rate just right it would chatter or stall outright. Just recently I finally had a eureka moment. I took extra time to ensure the height of the tip of my parting tool was exactly centered with the axis of the lathe and WOW what a difference! Parting is a breeze now!

I usually will swipe my carbide cutters on a worn 400grit diamond plate. this does wonders for performance!

I'm thinking of buying an old Schaublin 102 lathe. I was raised playing around on one but I think I'll follow your advice and buy a mini lathe and get reacquainted with a lathe .

Yeah but I have like 100 of them....

I agree with the "buy new, buy small" when you don't know anything. I have 6 years on a PM-1030 (Chinese manufacture) lathe that was purchased new. It has also suited me well. The one serious upgrade/modification was on the motor going from a 1 HP brushed DC motor to a 2 HP brushless DC motor and controller. Aside from the added torque, it also included the ability to brake the motor. It now stops turning immediately which is quite handy when single pointing. Would I like big ol' chunk of iron, such as a Monarch? Yeah, but this one will do for another few years.

Couldn't use use PEEK, PEKK, PEEK-CF or even ASA or ABS and print them?

Like a large amount of the Chinese or import products, you get what you pay for. If this means that you can afford a mini lathe, it gives you the opportunity to see if you enjoy using it. If you use it 3 times and then use it as a dumping ground no big loss. If you had bought a small industrial lathe it would be a big loss. If you enjoy it, you also improve the low quality machine which teaches you how things work. Then you can move up to a better machine when you are more knowledgeable. It gives more people access to try hobbies and interests that they would not have easily had previously.

I want a lathe mainly to work on pool cues and maybe one day further projects. Im really hoping to pull the trigger on one soon. I appreciate the video and definitely learned alpt just by watching it so thank you.

Well I know what I'm making tomorrow

Nice work.

Thank you so much!! Fantastic video, my man!

I have a "Vevor" 7 x 14 mini lathe in my Ebay Cart. Under $400 US free shipping. I appreciate all the cool fixes and improvements you made! I have been studying up on metrology in preparation to build an Epoxy Granite CNC. I am ready to scrape and measure. I have a myriad of small projects that I have been managing to use a drill press as a lathe on, the next is a telescope project or turn down some delrin to fit carbon fiber tubes. I have to make 32. So a mini lathe is on the menu.

You are GOOD! Great stuff - you've given me swell ideas and advice. Sadly, I have to admit I've grown old and I THINK I used to think like you and come up with terrific ideas! but I'm happy to follow your guidance! Thank You. Oh, Great vid and audio!

do you do refurbs for other people?