The Little Machine Shop mini lathes are a step above most offerings. They're slightly better finished and the high torque version is decent. I have the 7x16 high torque mini lathe and have made quite a few things with it. As long as you stay within it's rigidity limits it's fine. All of these lathes need adjustments to work ok, but that's what you learn with a mini. What's nice if you stay with LMS, is that their accessories actually fit with no fanfare or adjustments. I bought an ER32 chuck from them and it fit and the TIR (total indicated run-out) was like 0.0002". It's really nice to be able to flip parts without having to re-indicate. They do cost more than other minis, but you do get a better product, with actual customer support and parts availability should something go wrong. Due to some brain fart or misjudgement, I crashed the mini. I called LMS and they got me the parts in no time. They gave me one of the parts free, supplied me with little push rivets that would be hard to source and got me with a small can of spray paint since I mentioned that some of the paint was chipping. Pretty pleased with their service and advice.My two cents.
I also find single point threading to be exciting at times. My 10x22 has no back gear and it's minimum speed is 100 RPM. For coarse threads, things go too fast for me. But, I have learned to reverse thread for coarse threads. The spindle rotates backwards, the tool is put on the back side of the work piece, and the threading is from the shoulder towards the tail stock. I have a threaded spindle, however, I also have clamps that attach to my chuck and clamp onto my spindle. My chucks have never loosened one bit. I did test the clamps with a loose chuck and they perform well enough to retain the chuck - there's loads of time to turn off the lathe and refasten the chuck. I'm a pretty cautious machinist, so I'm not worried about things coming undone.When you "reverse thread" you are cutting right hand threads. I use a left handed tool for reverse threading, but you could simply turn a right hand tool upside down. Left handed tool is better, simply because you can get closer to the shoulder. Maybe one day I'll figure out a pulley arrangement to go slower, but so far reverse threading has been fine. I made a cast iron back plate for my lathe and reverse threaded it 1.5" x 8 TPI. Due to the pandemic, semi-finished back plates were unavailable, so I made it from a raw slice of cast iron. Never made a back plate in my life, and I was really happy at how well it came out. If I ever needed to make another, I wouldn't hesitate to do it.
For some reason I am having trouble posting photos, even after resizing them. I was under the limit, but it wouldn't let me attach any pictures. Have a series of pictures on the machining of the back plate, with some of the cast iron mess. Oh well, I'll figure it out in a while.
Quote from: WobblyHand on December 27, 2023, 02:13:25 PMFor some reason I am having trouble posting photos, even after resizing them. I was under the limit, but it wouldn't let me attach any pictures. Have a series of pictures on the machining of the back plate, with some of the cast iron mess. Oh well, I'll figure it out in a while. why not use flikr or similar service, this way you dont need to upload direct to gta.. place the photos on the website , and simply copy and past the code for the image .
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