Converting wood lathe to metal

[Ian]

Hi

Has anyone converted their wood lathe for metal turning?

I have a axminster 900 lathe and was looking to hopefully use it for accurate metal turning.

Any advice would be great.

Cheers Ian

PS and a happy new year to all

 

[jasonB]

I think you would be wasting your time, the bearings and tailstock alighnment are not accurate enough for starters.

You would then need to find a way of accuratly advancing a cutting tool along, accross and diagonally to the lathe axis. And ideally have powered feed along the lathe and preferably across as well.

The slowest speed of 500rpm is also a bit on the high side if you intend workinh on anything over 1" dia.

Jason

 

[Ian]

Thanks Jason

Ian

 

[CHJ]

As Jason has said, forget it, totally unsuitable for anything other than finishing off the odd brass ferule on a handle or the like.

 

[John. B]

Absolutely and definitely not. I have a small engineering lathe and apart from having a lead screw and cross slide, variable speeds down to about 50 rpm or less.
Accuracy of 001 of an inch (old money) no hand held cutting tips,,,,,etc,etc. need I go on.
If you want to work in metal, get a small model engineering lathe. you will find it very useful for making things for your wood lathe.

 

[dickm]

If you <really> want to use your lathe for very basic metal turning, you might be able to pick up the cross/top slides that Myford made for the ML8 and for the Mystro. (I think there was also a similar thing for the Graduate/Jubilee) You won't be able to screw cut with these, except with a chaser, and like the others have said, why bother? As well as the precision issues, wood dust in the close fitting bits of a metal-turning lathe won't do it any good!
Having said that, I did succumb to a secondhand Myford cross/top slide that was going cheap for my Mystro, thinking there might occasionally be things for which it was useful, where it would save the Super 7 for higher precision jobs. But haven't used it yet...

 

[Ian]

Ok thanks guys

I think I might try to sell of the lathe and go for a small metal one.

Cheers

Ian