Hello Al, Welcome.    Great folk here, lots of good info. Since I'm also learning by my very own mistakes too… er, 'self-taught' :) I've learned a lot here in a short time. Heck, with 2 yrs experience, you are way ahead of some of us :)   Feel free to share your projects and tips with us real beginners. I've got a HF 'combo' lathe/miill/drill press that I call the BGT [Big Green Tank] because I think it was made from an entire melted down Chinese tank, it's so massively over-engineered :):)Is that the case with your HF lathe too?

     – Don

Hi friends.  Attached is the link to my PhotoBucket account.  It contains pics of much of the tooling I've made for my 8x12.  Nothing fancy, just tooling to make tooling to fix stuff.  My best project todate was turning 3 axles from  1" 1144 Stressproof round for 3 electric wheelchair motors.  I had to make the axles (the originals broke) because you cannot get replacement parts for these motors.

Anyway, still learning and looking at what everyone else is doing.

Regards, Al

http://m694.photobucket.com/al…..E%2F3yw%3D

Hi HF 8X12,

     I looked at some of your photobucket stuff… I admire the quality of your lathe work, Sir, especially the ball-turner. Also, the mobile filing cabinet on a dolly for the bandsaw. Ya can't ever have too much workshop storage space & why waste that inside a mobile tool base. Sigh… you might have caused me to rethink getting a bandsaw… so I'll blame it on YOU ! :)   – to SWMBO, "But Dear, HF 8X12 showed me how to make a bandsaw fit in the workshop"….

      Nice use of bluing on the machinists' jacks and the die holders. Looking forward to seeing drawings of some of your projects here.

     – Don     They'll probably mount my ashes on casters when they toss me in the ocean :):)

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to
cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into
the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the
outside edge.

Tyler said:

Hey Al, I took a look at your Photobucket pictures, very nice. Where did you come up with the design for your ball turner? I've never seen one like that before where the tool rotates along the path of your cross slide. I've only seen them mounted to the base of the cross slide, not the toolpost. Is it pretty sturdy or do you need to take very light cuts? 

For those of you who haven't seen it, here's Al's ball turner in action.

Thanks for looking.  The 'over-the-top' is very sturdy, grinding the bit is the key to stability and it can cut down to the mounting shaft without hitting the chuck.  I have forgotten where I got the idea but short story, I didn't think I could make a copy of Steve Bedair's ball turner (no mill) so I made this one.  I also made a yoke type which works quite well. I just found the original link for the ball turner.

http://members.optusnet.com.au…..urner.html

Regards, Al