I came home form Hairy Forebears (Hare & Forbes, our local machinery shop) with 250kg of semi precision metal. I imagine the thing and I may have a initial problems communicating as it speaks Mandarin with a Deutsche accent. But it seems happy to be sitting in my workshop (aka glorified garage) for the moment. I'l post a pic and thoughts about it when I have it assembled and on a bench. This household blames you for the sudden need to create swarf.
~ smiles ~
Actually the need is not all that sudden. You've just poked me along.
so forum members, I'f you've just bought a machine? Why not use this thread to post a pic of your new setup (with initial costs to get going etc), as a guide to folk who may want to get grease under their fingers
Nice lathe! although im not a fan of milling attachments on lathes as they force you to pull down any settup you might have on the lathe... i can see that its going to give you a very versatile settup.
My little Teig T2 with extended table i bought from ausee machine tools as a package with vice, clamp set and milling cutters and collets is a little light weight, it was the right price and will do for now.
look forward to seeing what you do with the new kit!
Cheers,
Hugh
It the TU2506 lathe with BF20 mill.
It is on sale for June 2018 for AU$2520 (down from AU$2870). But by the time I bought tooling, chucks, tapers and collets etc, I'd spent another AU$600.
Before I bought it I had a chat to a bloke on youtube who had a 2506. He's been using his for a year or so now and was very happy. He'd just used an Arduino micro controller, rotary encoder and a stepper motor to replace all the gearing to make thread pitch adjustment a push of a button.
He did point out the mill head was not as accurate as he'd like though. Looking at how it's bolted to the lathe bed, I understand that. I may fabricate a "broader" mounting bracket out of some 12-15mm plate in the future? We'll see ...
I made the bench out of some scrap angle I had and the draw/benches are the ply from the crate it came in. Machining may be new to me, but welding is not
~ smiles ~
I've not put the bore screw protecting bellows on yet in this pic, but they are fitted now. The buggers in the factory left the key out of the key-way in the mill elevator wheel and one of the M12 mounting holes in the lathe bed was not properly tapped. But I've sorted that out now.
Which machine? I was looking at there website yesterday - being in the market for a slightly bigger lathe than my 7 x 12.
Cheers,
Hugh