Eyeball Engineering

[rob_b]

Having owned both machines...

7x can be tuned in to make some very nice parts. But it will be at the price of speed. I would classify the cutting approach as cautious. Did like the speed control and the ability to to feed the carriage both ways though.

0602 is a beast compared to the 7x both in size and capacity. You can confidently turn Delrin, aluminum and steel at rates higher than your willingness to dodge the chip storm and operate the controls. I have the on/off AC motor. ALWAYS changing belts! The VFD would make the lathe even more of a joy to operate.

The last thing is that the builders of the two lathes differ, the 7x is from SIEG and the 0602 from WEISS. I like Weiss designs better. Quality is about the same, shit.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

..... You can confidently turn Delrin, aluminum and steel at rates higher than your willingness to dodge the chip storm and operate the controls. ...

Quite a funny mental image here, but it is hell trying to dodge plastics on a manual machine that will remove it quick!

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

The G0752 is the same size and has vfd (I too like that feature). More money though.

Grizzly.com

 

[EddieO]

You will spend easily that on the VFD conversion, not counting wanting to stab yourself in the face setting it up on the machine....a few guides out there make it seem easy, but it is some work to get it working correctly.....knowing electronics a bit helps as well. If I could go back, I would of bought that one if it was available at the time.

Later EddieO

 

[BigSki]

Quite a funny mental image here, but it is hell trying to dodge plastics on a manual machine that will remove it quick!

It's also a ton of fun when a long streamer of material starts to whip around and it slaps you across your hand before you can get out of the way. It looks like you lost a fight with a big, angry cat! :mrgreen:

The G0752 is the same size and has vfd (I too like that feature). More money though.

Grizzly.com

That looks like a nice starter 'fiddly-diddly' machine that would last for a long time. It's nice that it includes some tooling that you would have to purchase separately if you got the 7X machine.

 

[BigSki]

Just curious if you have decided on a machine??

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

Just curious if you have decided on a machine??

Not yet. I need to collect a bit more $ before making a hard decision.

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

Finally!

Nothing terribly interesting, just an ebay special. Definitely not what I had my eyes on, but thanks to some life stuff I had to cash out the DCW funds, and had to give up all my hard earned lathe money. Still, the price was right and it had what I needed (4" chuck). I couldn't resist giving it a quick test run out of the box, and it did pretty well. Now that I've torn it down and cleaned/deburred/lubed it properly, it'll probably do even better.


Now I'm looking at this to go along with it: Tooling Package, Mini Lathe 3486 - LittleMachineShop.com

 

[Lentsnh2012]

How much did it set you back if you don't mind me asking? You can PM me if you don't want to announce it to everyone.\


That's a rocking deal for that tool package! It comes with everything! Best part is that you'll never need to buy new turning bits if you stick with delrin.

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

$620 shipped. I had it on my watch list and they sent me an email saying the price had been reduced. IIRC they were normally $670-690 (least expensive I could find with that chuck on it).


It'll be 95% delrin, 5% aluminum. Should do just fine.

 

[Lentsnh2012]

$620 shipped. I had it on my watch list and they sent me an email saying the price had been reduced. IIRC they were normally $670-690 (least expensive I could find with that chuck on it).

Whoa! That's awesome!

I know what's next on my tools list!8)

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

Cleaned up one of my very first aluminum test wheels. It had a pretty good wobble to it. :ror:

I may put a handle on it and use it to replace one of the cranks. "thumbsup"

 

[BigSki]

Congrats duuuuuuuude!

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Yessir, congrats! Nice score there, it will do what you need extremely well.


Great job holding out on all the peer pressure to get bigger than you need :lol:

 

[CREEPERBOB]

Yes sir, "thumbsup".
Now the other half of your inventions can get made.

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

I think its going to be a good little machine. There are a few issues to address, but the knowledge base is pretty wide so they shouldn't be much of an ordeal.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

If you are into getting a coolant system down the road, I highly recommend the fogbuster ones. You won't need a catch bucket and it won't put mist in the air. I got a 1/2 gallon system on the mill and used maybe a cup of mixed lube over the period of a year using it 5 hours a week. No mess, the lube hangs onto your waste material. It is also really useful as a cool air blast system on plastics to keep the bit from melting the material, but I do find a better finish using lube vs dry on acetal.

 

[monkeyracer]

I do find a better finish using lube

Just thought I would leave that quote... in case someone wants to use it in their signature...

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

I need to set up some kind of cooling/lube system on the mill. There's an air line running to it now, and I used it for a while, but the compressor noise was highly bothersome, especially since my sons bedroom shares a wall with the garage and its not unusual for me to be up until 12-1 am making stuff. I'm getting by pretty good with my squirt bottle full of WD40. ;-)

 

[Duuuuuuuude]

Spent the night bolting it to the bench (sans the rubber feet) and figuring out a carriage lock (it failed, but worked awesome as a stop), and ways to take the slop out of the cross feed and compound.

The cross feed required about ".010 worth of brass shims on the shaft. For the compound I shortened and brazed an old allen wrench onto the head of a 4mm bolt to replace one of the jib adjustment screws. With a half turn I can go from a slight drag on the jib to tight and movement free. K.I.S.S. I may make another for the cross feed.

Checked the runout on the chuck and had a happy ".001. "thumbsup"

Ordered the tooling package from LMS, along with a small handful of spare hss tips.