I’ve been meaning to post this for over a year now. So my apologies to Michele for taking so long to share this.

By now you’ve all probably come across Dave Gingery’s book on building a metalworking lathe from scratch. Michele from Belgium seems to have done just that, but he didn’t use Gingery’s plans. He made his own!

Michele states that the dimensions for his lathe are a peak of 130mm (which I assume means a swing of 260mm?) with an overall bed length of 1000mm. That roughly translates to a 10″ x 40″ lathe.

But this isn’t the only thing Michele has build from scratch. He also constructed a clockmaker’s gear cutter, the plans for which I posted here last year.

Michele provides plenty of pictures and details for this lathe on his website, which can be found here (English translation) or here (original French). You can also find other versions of the plans for the lathe (DXF, DWG, etc) on Michele’s site, as well as other projects that you might be interested in.

Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but his plans are in French. That shouldn’t pose much of a problem, but I thought I’d mention it.

Thanks for sharing your plans Michele! I’m sorry it has taken me so long to post them.

  Tour_1000mm_Metal_Lathe.pdf (2.1 MiB, 49 hits)
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John Lawson invited me over to his shop a few days ago and showed me some pretty amazing things he’s made over the years, including his Atlas vertical milling attachment that he made from Taig parts. His vertical attachment really caught my eye because I am in the process of restoring an Atlas MFC mill and I’ve been looking for a good vertical option for a while now. I think the design is in some ways an improvement over the Marvin milling attachment. Apparently John got the idea when he saw a Taig mill being parted out on eBay. He bought the spindle and motor for a fraction of what a Taig mill costs new and he had everything he needed (except for a mounting plate which he made) for his conversion.

Here’s a video of the attachment in action.

And here are a few pics.

I know what some of you Atlas purists are thinking. “How could anything be better than a Marvin?!” Well, for one thing, it’s available. I’ve never seen a Marving on eBay or anywhere else for sale (although they do supposedly show up for sale occassionally). And I’ve heard that when Marvin milling attachments do show up for sale they cost a fortune. Unless you’re a collector the Marvin isn’t practical. John’s attachment is.

Got a better idea for a vertical milling attachment conversion for an Atlas (or similar) horizontal mill? Share it with us by visiting the forum and leaving a comment/pictures/etc. We’d love to see it!

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Barry Young (author of the “Norman Newguy” column) walks us through the various stones he keeps in his tool box. His stones range from rare Hard Arkansas to cheap dollar store stones. Barry not only discusses different stones and their uses, he also explains how to flatten badly worn stones, how to tell natural stone from man-made, etc. He also gives us his recommendation for the first stone a hobby machinist should buy.

You’ll also get a little humor along the way – something that is usually missing from most machining-related videos. What stones do you have in your toolbox? Feel free to add your “two cents” by visiting the forum topic related to this video.

Enjoy!

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