Apprentice Piece – Turning

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Funnily enough the first thing I thought was Daleks! I did figure out what they were. How terribly sad, he was clearly more than usually talented.

Neil

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

In the late 50s, early 60s, every grade of Apprentice, at Rolls Royce, Oil Engine Division, from Craft through to Graduate, spent a year in the Training School. As the year progressed, the higher grades moved on to projects where machining was a means to the end. But everyone had an insight into Turning, Milling, Grinding, Fitting and Inspection. Some of us, myself included, had never seen a lathe before, let alone used one!

For the folk, apparently, envisaged by the OP, the first 20 or 30 minutes are going to be spent on H & S, and showing how to stop and start the machine, then its other controls. Only then should they be allowed to run the machine, whilst closely supervised. (1:1) Very likely, the first thing that they will learn is that the cut will reduce the diameter by twice that amount! Then , again, under supervision the student could start making the plumb bob. Starting with planning the sequence of operations, leading to plain turning, drilling, taper turning. Boring will be too slow to cover in a session lasting only two hours. Even completing a small two part piece like the plumb bob will be very tight on time.

Cannot see that there will be time available for thread cutting, by any means. So, if the two parts of a Plumb Bob are made, securing the two parts has to be by "sticking", two part epoxy/anaerobics etc.

At the end, the student ought to have a very basic understanding of what a lathe can do, but little else, other than (hopefully) a respect for power driven equipment.

These students will not have the experience and skills of many of the readers of this forum, so their work rate will be SLOW. And the safer for that, for them.

Howard

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

"Reducing the dia by twice that amount", and that depends on where you get your lathe, on mine you move the depth of cut say .020", and the tool moves .010" and takes off .020" on diameter, got well and truly caught out when I used a mates Myford 7, moved .020, and took off .040", lucky me, I still had .005" to go.

Ian S C

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

Direct reading dials are one project i want to do on my southbend .

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