Well, I recently ordered a small benchtop metal lathe from Harbor Freight, which as usual has some pretty exceptional prices. Initially, the impetus is to use it to do some machining work on a project I’m working on. I can’t talk about the project yet due to the holiday season ;) but I can certainly show some pictures of getting it set up.
Woo! It’s a big 100 pound box! As a side note, avoid FedEx when possible. Every time I’m forced to use them to have something shipped, it’s delayed or some other un-fun-ness. Anyway, Let’s pop it open and see what we’ve got!
How about a whole pile of accessories and random bits to stick on the lathe!!!! Also, below them, the lathe itself, coated in a ludicrously thick layer of thick thick grease.
After a couple hours and half a roll of paper towels, I got most of the shipping grease off, and now it’s set up and ready to machine some stuff! As soon as I get around to it…
Anyway, hopefully in the coming days I’ll get a chance to actually try machining something. (The dust you see on there is from a small bit of doweling I tried it out on and was quickly reminded that metal cutting tools don’t work well on wood.)