Mini Lathe ~ best modifications?

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

The Mini Lathe~ maligned by some, loved by many.

Whilst not the last word in engineering magnificance it has, i'm sure, opened up the world of hobby engineering to many~ including myself.

A trawl of the internet will bring up many modifications & 'improvements' to this humble machine.

These range literally from 'the good, the bad & the ugly' ~ please peruse, they may be a source of enlightenment, or spur you on to make your Mini Lathe your very own unique machine.

One of my favourites was a '7x 20 mini lathe bed extension'~ long since disappeared into the cyberspace ether… I Wonder if it ever got finished?

So…. what Mini Lathe modifications worked for you? Which is the best?

I'll start things off~ my Mini Lathe has been fairly heavily modified & still ongoing.

My absolute best mod was a cross slide extension. Now have 100mm travel.

Not only can I turn up to nearly 6" dia stock without crazy toolpost manipulation, the toolpost neatly skirts the 100mm chuck for 'parking' whilst drilling etc with the tailstock.

N.B. to date max dia turning 5" steel, boy was that frustrating, but 'm sure 6.9" Ali would be a breeze!

Your mileage may vary, but for me #1 mod.

My also rans~

Headstock taper roller bearings~ Other sources quote much better parting off performance. I never noticed this, but parting off has never been an issue(within limits)

Maybe i did something wrong? (Actually I know I did~ spindle end bearing is slightly too loose, other end slightly too tight (on shaft). Still works well enough, but you learn by your mistakes.

Facing was however much,much better. Absolutely worth the effort just for this.

Some sort of bearings to both cross slide & top slide are very much to be recommended.

Please note, whilst these may help, if your top slide/cross slide are rather lumpy/rough, this is not a cure in & of itself & you need to address the issue seperately (& preferably1st)

Reading around,some Mini lathes seem to come with quite acceptable cross slides/ topslides & some seem to be quite awful out the box.

Mine was the latter~ but i learnt a fair bit fixing the issue.

Right~ over to you folks!

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

& I thought i was nuts.

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

Posted by Steviegtr on 03/03/2023 02:04:52:

& I thought i was nuts.

Meaning.. I am?

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

You should upload some photos of your modifications, I'm mulling over ideas for my project mini lathe, I have a couple of ideas I don't think I've seen anyone else do, but these machines are so heavily modified by so many people it's quite possible someone somewhere has already done it.

There's a young German lad with a channel called "we can do that better" who almost exclusively does videos on modifying his mini lathe, he's done a few nice additions well worth taking a look.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Best Mod – buy something bigger as soon as you outgrow it

[RobCoxParticipant @robcox]

Posted by JasonB on 03/03/2023 07:04:27:

Best Mod – buy something bigger as soon as you outgrow it

Thats what I did. The project that made me realise I wanted a bigger lathe was when I was tarting up a spindexer which had poorly machined ends on the bore. There was – literally – 1mm of clearance over the bed.

So I ended up with an M300, but the minilathe was used to machine replacement shafts for the Harrison. I still cant bring myself to part with it, even though its relegated to the garage and doesnt get used.

One mod that doesnt get much mention, not complicated and was the first I did, fit a plate on the back of the apron to keep chips out of the otherwise open gears.

Other mods I did were the tapered roller bearings (I was one who experienced a massive parting off improvement), tapered gibs, thrust bearings in the compound slide, a threading dial (didnt like the OEM one), cam lock on the tailstock and a qctp, though that had to wait till I'd got my first mill.

[Andy_GParticipant @andy_g]

#1 Sort out the gib strip in the compound slide

#2 Bolt it to something solid

#3 Indexing holes in the chuck backplate & a toolpost spindle.

[David Watson 3Participant @davidwatson3]

As per my other post regarding motor problems I didnt buy my Mini Lathe personally I inherited it. I had given up model engineering and sold my very worn Myford ML4.

My father bought the Mini Lathe after having a Rivet 608 for his clock making and gave the Rivet to his friends son. I didnt think he did much with the Mini Lathe but it has been used and the gib strip under the back of the saddle has been replaced with a piece of flat bar. Apart from that it as it was delivered.

When I retired and having more time I treated myself to a WM 14 Milling machine and am making more use of the lathe making minor improvements. My next project will be a quick change tool post as per ideas from Youtube videos.

If I hadnt inherited the lathe I might have considered buying something from the likes of Warco. A brand new lathe at the price of a second hand one that you dont know its history is always worth a thought.

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

Watching TouTube mini lathe improvement videos (amongst others) while recovering from recent hand surgery – preferable to day-time TV ! – has motivated me to do some "upgrades" to a Chester Conquest. I got this (complete mechanically but no electrics other than the motor) from a Chester open day many years ago with a view to using it a a basis for a CNC conversion, but have decided to use it as-is with some of the "improvements" detailed on the likes of "We can do that better" , "Artisan Makes" , "Hammerland" and others.

My modified thumb is sort-of working again, so parts have been ordered & started to arrive – taper roller bearings, steel headstock gears, aluminium timing belt pulleys & some electrical components so far. Modified cross & compound slide gibs, saddle keep strips, feed screw thrust bearings & some form of rigid base (I am thinking of using a 50mm thick pressed concrete paving slab) are all on the "to do" list. Also have ideas to replace the permenant magnet DC motor (not a great solution for this application IMO) with a multi-step pulley & AC motor arrangement to get more torque at lower speeds than the DC arrangement can provide – but that is a way off.

I'm under no illusions that this will produce a "Myford or Boxford beater", but I spent a large part of my working life modifying and upgrading machine tools & would prefer to play along those lines now I have retired, rather than get involved with more traditional model engineering subjects. Well to start with anyway.

I can't say I am surprised that a 40kg-ish small lathe not bolted to a rigid base shows signs of deflection at low force inputs & improves noticably with a foundation – full size machine tools do so also & the manufacturers recommendation for all I have been involved with is to bolt them to a substantial concrete foundation. Some need this more than others, being little more than a hard facing that get most of their rigidity from the foundations (Binns & Berry lathes & Butler Elagmills come to mind here) & others (like Asquith gantry machining centres) rely upon the foundations to hold several separate machine elements in the correct location relative to each other – there is no machine without the foundation.

Nigel B.

Nigel B.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Many of the mods described by Alistair Sinclair and Mike Cox are beneficial. I like the graduated Leadscrew Handle.

Made a combined Saddle and Cross Slide lock for mine.

And made two 100T gears to give a finer feed rate. This involved slightly modifying the clamping for the banjo and some surgery on the gear cover, But worth it in my eyes.

Am presently trying to make a rear toolpost to fit a Cross Slide that lacks T slots. That looks like it will need a slot cut into the splash back!

Howard

fat fingers strike again!

Edited By Howard Lewis on 03/03/2023 11:38:36

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Posted by JasonB on 03/03/2023 07:04:27:

Best Mod – buy something bigger as soon as you outgrow it

I do agree there are much better lathes out there, but the relative low cost of the machines on the second hand market and availability of cheap replacement parts means people learning have the confidence to try some creative projects that most would never consider on a more expensive machine, it helps beginners understand how machines work and aspects that make them work better, I find the creativity aspect of it quite fun seeing what people come up with.

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

Posted by Pete. on 03/03/2023 15:21:10:

Posted by JasonB on 03/03/2023 07:04:27:

Best Mod – buy something bigger as soon as you outgrow it

I do agree there are much better lathes out there, but the relative low cost of the machines on the second hand market and availability of cheap replacement parts means people learning have the confidence to try some creative projects that most would never consider on a more expensive machine, it helps beginners understand how machines work and aspects that make them work better, I find the creativity aspect of it quite fun seeing what people come up with.

I've not outgrown mine yet either.

Guess i'm still happy tuning up the moped whilst the rest of the lads have moved on to Mk2 Escorts.

I tend to learn most lessons in life the hard way but one lesson i did learn fairly young.

As a teen i attempted to learn electric guitar. Some people are gifted that way, some not~ guess i'm not.

Anyhow, i could only afford a cheap one & put it sounding a bit naff down to that.

One day a friend of a friend was visiting, now he could really play! Picked up my guitar banged some stuff out, pronounced it 'not bad' & my ears couldn't believe it was the same instrument!!

Lesson was~ a skilled person can work wonders with only modest equipment. Sure they can do better with quality equipment, but it's the "skilled …..whatever" that counts.

Judgeing by some of the work exhibited on this forum it will be a long time before my humble mini lathe will be the limiting factor to my limited "skill"

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

Here's one more, well it's not really a modification or improvement, more of a helpful tip~

Not seen this anywhere whilst surfing the web, might be useful to someone.

I find single point screw cutting quite satisfying, however changing out all those gears can be a bit of a pain.

They are pretty tight on the shafts (as they should be) & especially that B/C gear bush.

The sticker on your mini lathe lists various combinations for the ABCD gears, but not all thread pitches possible are listed, neither is the particular combination necessarily the only combination that will produce a particular thread pitch.

Now, sit down with pencil paper & calculator (if required) & thrash out possible changewheel combinations for all the pitches you are likely to want to cut.

See if you can minimise the gear swap outs.

I can cut several metric pitches without changing either A or D wheels & a few more before finally having to swap out the D wheel (gear)

Next, based on your ' minimal change tabl'e, you just thrashed out buy some extra changewheels (you will know which ones from your table) & either buy or make a couple of extra BC gear bushes.

Assemble those extra BC 'cartridges'

Swapping out a different BC "cartridge " will be a breeze, & save you time & a little frustration.

[samuel heywoodParticipant @samuelheywood23031]

Posted by Pete. on 03/03/2023 06:24:05:

You should upload some photos of your modifications, I'm mulling over ideas for my project mini lathe, I have a couple of ideas I don't think I've seen anyone else do, but these machines are so heavily modified by so many people it's quite possible someone somewhere has already done it.

There's a young German lad with a channel called "we can do that better" who almost exclusively does videos on modifying his mini lathe, he's done a few nice additions well worth taking a look.

Well here's my take on the cross slide extension…. Used brass because it was early days, i didn't want to use Ali & my steel turning still looked like the machinists equivalent of a ploughed field! Hidden in there are two 10x15x4 bearings, bigger would be better but the retaining bolts get in the way rather.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

I have a Sieg SC3 which has been in use for seven years and in that time I have done three main modifications. The first was to make a banjo for the feed gear train, it was a copy of someone else's and I think the gear spacing was for a total gear tooth of 100 across the two gears. The second was as mentioned increasing the cross travel so I could just exceed the maximum diameter of the machine. The third was to fit taper gibs to the main slide and get rid of the crap retaining plates, this again was a copy of something done on an American site some years ago. I have only replaced the headstock bearings once and that was like for like although maybe the bearings I bought had less clearance than those initially fitted. Nearly forgot also made brass gibs for cross slide.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by David Watson 3 on 03/03/2023 11:26:47:

……./

If I hadnt inherited the lathe I might have considered buying something from the likes of Warco. A brand new lathe at the price of a second hand one that you dont know its history is always worth a thought.

On the other hand … a good secondhand lathe at rather less than a third of the price for a brand new one can be attractive.🙂 I did check the condition of my four main machines (lathe, 2 mills and surface grinder) before buying – although the surface grinder was such a bargain that it was going in the van whatever its condition.

I did, however spend some money on checking out several machines, before buying my lathe.

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