On
18 March 2025 at 10:55 beeza650 Said:
@sillyoldduffer
My plan is to fix stuff that’s worth fixing and make new stuff related to that.
That strongly suggests a big lathe, not starting small. Best general advice is to buy the biggest machine you can afford and accommodate the reason being big lathes can do small work, whilst small lathes can’t do big.
Though possible to squeeze large work on to undersized machines, calls for ingenuity and takes time. Where a big lathe simply accepts the job in a chuck and tailstock, the owner of a smaller machine is forced to use a faceplate, or mount the job between centres with dogs, and/or extemporise a tailstock with wooden blocks. And then he finds the cutter can’t get close enough, so that has to be fiddled with too. Setting up takes hours rather than minutes, which matters when doing paid work!
Probably an advantage to find a gap-bed lathe that also has a large diameter spindle hole. The gap allows extra large diameter work to be turned, usually on the faceplate, and the spindle allows pipe and large diameter rod to be fed through the headstock. (And if feeding rod through the headstock is a thing, don’t position the headstock end of the lathe in a corner!) Probably for rigidity reasons, many big old lathes have surprisingly small spindle holes, so check!
I see endless facebook and tiktok posts about folk doing work on old engines etc that haven’t got enough hours in the day. They’re doing to make a living, I’d be doing it to fund my retirement, very different things.
That’s so, retirement provides time and flexibility. However if ‘funding my retirement‘ is an important requirement, then I recommend writing a simple Business Case. A money lender would insist on one, but they’re a useful sanity check. How much work is there, what can be charged for it, how much has to be spent on tooling up, and how much will each repair cost to do? Tax? Insurance? Allowing for bad debts? Be honest! Terrible to put time and money into an enterprise only to find it can’t be made to pay. Extra painful if money has been borrowed to set up. Manual work is expensive, horribly so if done on inadequate tooling, and customers will go elsewhere to avoid long waits and big bills! Not an easy sure-fire way of making a living. Hobby repair as a way of topping up a pension is safe enough, but relying on repair work to pay all the bills is high-risk.
Typically that’s going to be cars and bikes but, for example, repair of other machinery is fun (I did a 10month stint at 19/20 rebuilding book binding machinery).
I’ve pretty much worked out the way to start is small – in my garage – with second hand machines only (ideally a “inherit” a complete workshop). I’ll build my skills up in the very little free time ready for phase 2 when I move house – if that never happens then no harm done, I’ll keep everything for odd job repairs of my own classic bikes etc.
Very sensible, start with a low-risk learning phase. Above all it will teach how fast you can work, or want to, and inform the ‘what next?’ decisions. I’m a slow worker who makes silly mistakes. Whilst I get there in the end, my low productivity is a factor, where I thinking of machining for money.
P.S. I doubt I’ll be doing anything big, but the second I say that I’ll want to skim a drum brake hub or something. Long stuff….hmmm…on a motorbike the longest thing i’d work on is probably an axle.
Yup, you might well find that skimming drums and discs is big business. Though many can be done on a Myford sized lathe, bigger is better.
Cranks would be a while away.
Definitely needs a bigger lathe!
I’ll need to get good a welding and probably get a fair bit of gear in the space as a lot of repairs I see seem to be about repairing cracks or wear.
Yeah, very likely. Again, size matters. An electric welder that runs off a 13A socket is marginal for anything other than small work, so expect to upgrade the electrics. A 32A socket and next size up welder solves a lot of problems.
As always much depends on the type of work being done. And if the work must also be profitable then the financial side needs careful attention, unless of course job-satisfaction counter-balances cash losses. Though I thoroughly enjoy turning and milling as a hobby, I wouldn’t want to earn a living from machining.
Please keep us informed, this is interesting. Great when people succeed – gives me a warm glow! Also educational to know what went wrong, so others can avoid the pitfalls and learn from how you tackled problems.
Best wishes,
Dave