U DRILL. Manual Lathe

[@smallcnclathes]

Have you never used the U drill as a boring bar? A friend of mine used to make me parts with a 50mm hole all done withe a 40 U drill. Drill, bore turn and face all with the same tool. Thanks for showing us the use of a U drill in a manual lathe.

[@weldmachine]

Hi Nigel. I have used this idea in the past but only on a CNC Lathe where you can offset the tool in the program using X Axis. I could possibly do the same thing on my Manual Lathe IF I set up the U Drill on my Tool Post. The only downside I see with the Offset U Drill is replacement of Inserts. As most of the Inserts for U Drills are fairly expensive compared to Standard Turning Inserts. But it does have the advantage of using less space on your Tool Turret if you're like me and only have a 8 Station Tool Turret. IF I did not already have my Mazak CNC Lathe it would be hard to justify the expensive of buying U Drills. I am Definitely looking forward to getting the Mazak running again, as soon as I have some free time again 😁 Thanks for taking the time to watch. All the best. Peter 👍

[@TheKnacklersWorkshop]

Hello Peter, Good video... they are always informative, thank you. Take care. Paul,,

[@weldmachine]

Hey Paul. Thanks for following along on my channel 👍

[@theeddies]

Good stuff. Learned quite a bit. I knew about those but that's about it. Thanks!

[@weldmachine]

They are Definitely the best way to drill a hole. But as mentioned in the video. Every Good has some Bad. Not the cheapest way to drill a hole. But it makes light work of drilling multiple holes. Thanks for watching. 👍

[@vgnfab]

What do you think of some of the Chinese versions of these U drills you can get for $35 USD? Are standard ER collets water/ pressure proof or did you add a seal at the front? If so what sort of seal? Any holding methods other than collet chuck to MT that you'd recommend? Great video by the way! Thank you for it!

[@weldmachine]

I haven't brought any of the Chinese U Drills as yet. I'm sure they would be good enough to run on a Manual Lathe. What you could possibly do is buy a Chinese U Drill and use a good quality carbide inserts, this might help to reduce the cost ?? Occasionally you might find good quality U Drills online, some include the carbide inserts. Holding a U Drill in your Tailstock ?? You do have a couple of options available. Either a Collet Chuck similar to what is in this video, or you could use a Side Lock Holder to match the size of the shank on the U Drill. The main advantage of the Collet Chuck is you can use it for different sized U Drills and for holding End Mills, Drills or something similar and you only need 1 Toolholder. ( and of course the Collets to match the Collet Chuck ) The downside is, you will need to make a seal, to stop the Coolant leaking past the U Drill. IF you watch the video from 1:56. You will see an O Ring seal and a Nylon Washer just behind the U Drill. This should give you some idea of what you need to do. It's just a bit of trial and error until you get it right. I hope the information helps 👍

[@eyuptony]

Really enjoyed the explanation about U drills. I don't own any, being a novice. I see these as a professional users tool with years of experience under their belt. I completely understand about cost in purchase or replacing the tips, but if you are a commercial operation where time, overhead and labour costs are a premium factor to win contracts, speed is essential. Why don't you make a sort of bicycle cape around the cutting area on your manual lathe so you can run the coolant and lathe at the speed you would like to without wearing flippers. Two points to answer please. Would a lever operated tailstock be an advantage in this situation as you could lean on the handle to take a breather while boring all of those identical components? Final point that I learnt if correct by your comments. Are these only used for roughing out operations? Interesting video, I've steered away from the U drill because I new nothing about them until now. Tony

[@weldmachine]

Hey Tony. Great to see you checking out some of my older videos. 😊 The U Drill is a great way to remove a lot of material in a short amount of time. Of course a standard HSS Twist Drill can do the same job. But chip control is much better with a U Drill. As you would already know 🤔 Twist Drills obviously make a long chip. Which can be a bit annoying when drilling deep holes. If not for owning a CNC Lathe ( even though it's running as yet 🙄 ) I would more than lightly not buy to many U Drills for a Manual Lathe. Mostly because of cost. You can buy a lot of HSS Drills for the same money as 1, U Drill.🤔 But saying that, IF you have a lot of holes to drill on a Manual Lathe i would Definitely buy a U Drill even if it is was only to rough out to size. Cost of setting up for a U Drill is fairly expensive though. A Standard Coolant Pump is definitely not large enough to run a U Drill. That is IF you want your Inserts to last more than 1 day 😄 I guess you could make a cover that would control the coolant from splashing everywhere. But if you take a bit of care you can make do without 😉 A Chuck Guard is generally enough to control the coolant when you finally Drill through the part completely. Hope this helps explain some of my thoughts of why a U DRILL is great for use on a Manual Lathe. Thanks for watching this video. All the best Peter 👍

[@eyuptony]

@@weldmachine Cheers Peter I understand completely. Tony

[@paullang1961]

keep em commin fella cheers

[@weldmachine]

Thanks Paul. Much appreciate you following along with my videos 👍

[@sachie123]

Hey Peter, Shoot me the part number of the U-Drill, I may have some inserts. I have switched over to Tungaloy.

[@weldmachine]

Hey Sunil. It's the DS20 range UDrill Insert DS20-0104-C-L5 Inner Insert Current grade 1344 DS20-0104-P-L5W Outer Insert Current grade 4334 I have other UDriills also. Mixed series of UDrill DS20 & 880 How do you find the Tungaloy range. I have some of their Turning Inserts also. But mostly Sandvik 😁

[@sachie123]

@@weldmachine I will check if i have any. Tungaloy have some really nice stuff. The owner of Tungaloy Australia is good friend and He looks after me😉.

[@weldmachine]

@@sachie123 Inside Trading Hey🤔

[@sachie123]

@@weldmachine 😳Nope...he is always a phone call away, always there to help.