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Gallery, Projects and General => Gallery => Topic started by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 08:13:30 PM

Title: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 08:13:30 PM
Quote
Any chance of a pictures of your Gingery lathe/mill in different setups? I bought the books long time ago and considered giving it a go, but then I got more work than time and tradeoff was to buy a lathe. I liked the approach of using the machine itself to make parts to the machine. I see that you have taken that approach and modularity to next level.

Pekka

Pekka and others have asked for more info on the David Gingery designed lathe I built back in 2002-3. I made several accessories for it after I built the lathe itself, including a very versatile milling attachment of my own design, and I documented a lot of this in photos at the time. I've never posted a lot of it, so I'll do that here as I can over the next week or so.

Background: The lathe was the first machine work I ever did. I was not a machinist at the time I decided to build it. I had simply bought Dave Gingery's charcoal furnace book out of curiosity, and then needed to have a reason to build the furnace -- so bought the lathe book . I learned everything by doing it, following the instructions in the Gingery books.

In fact I knew so little when I started that, I didn't really know how all the parts would fit together, or what they were. I simply followed instructions in building each, and once I had a finished piece in hand, I could see how it would fit with the others. Building this lathe was probably one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, it led to much much more.

Here is a picture of the finished lathe with some of the patterns I made for casting the parts.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheandPatterns.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 09:38:56 PM
It all started with the furnace. The materials for building it were a Christmas popcorn tin, a piece of galvanized sheet wrapped around plywood disks as an inner form, a stainless stel canister and utensil set (to be used as a crucible and skimmers). The tin and stainless items purchased for a total of $15 at a local discount store. Also shown are some wooden spacers for ramming up the mold, a section of aluminum tube for a tuyere form, and a built up lid of sheet metal to be used as a form. I placed inside the original Christmas tin lid to give it the right diameter to fir the main body.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/FurnaceOldMaterials.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 09:42:05 PM
Here is the furnace lining being rammed up. The lining was fireclay and sand, with a little perlite mixed in.

(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/FurnaceOldRammed.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 09:45:01 PM
The lining and lid rammed up. I put a couple sheet strap "ears" in the lid to attach a bail type wire handle. there were large nails through  the ears in the refractory to help anchor them.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/FurnaceOldandLid.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 10:00:04 PM
Here is the pattern and mold for the lathe way bed casting -- one of the more difficult in the entire project. It is the largest casting, and has sand cores where the slots are. These need draft in the pattern, which is difficult to form. In addition it is one of the thinnest castings, so is hard to pour without cold shorting. I anticipated this problem and poured the metal a little hot, so my casting came out fine, first time.

Many people think the Gingery lathes are all aluminum. They aren't. This aluminum casting supports the lathe ways, which are a slab of cold rolled steel plate. Both the bed and the actual ways are hand scraped to a true straightedge using machinist blue (or artist's oil Prussian blue) and a scraper made form a file. It takes many hours to hand scrape all of the parts on this lathe. It took about 8 hours of work to scrape this bed and the steel ways. I used a brand new high quality carpenters 4' level as my straightedge, when checking the lathe parts for truth.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheWayMold.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: dsquire on February 10, 2013, 10:03:15 PM
VT

Im sitting here trying to be patient watching this thread unfold. I know it's going to be a good one if what you are showing so far is any indication.
(http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh490/DSquire/Main-2/Emoticons/ThankYou.gif)

Cheers  :beer:

Don
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: black85vette on February 10, 2013, 10:20:43 PM
Awesome to see the lathe and the patterns.   Impressive bit of work.   Cool to see how to get started with a furnace.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 10:28:21 PM
Here is an early casting of a "spray" of parts. I got impatient with making one small part at a time, so started to cast several at one go.

This phot illustrates some of the interesting methods Dave Gingery came up with. The blackened steel rods in the picture are actually cores. They have been covered with soot from a candle so they won't stick to the aluminum. On the right are 4 bearing halves for making two sets of split bearings. These will support the lead screw. The steel rod core forms a perfect bore that does not require finishing on these bearings.

In the upper left is  the leadscrew ball handle. The steel core will be knocked out of that one and a set screw will be installed to lock it to the lead screw.

In the lower right is the half nut locking lever, also cast on a steel core.

If these parts had simply had sand cores or no cores they would have had to be drilled and bored by the builder,which would have been tricky without a lathe to start with. Gingery assumes you have only a hand drill as a mechanical aid. I happened to have a small drill press which made things a little easier. The attention to the needs of a poorly equipped shop is one of the most admirable aspects of these books. You can indeed build a machine shop from nothing, because it does build itself.

Sometimes you make something for a Gingery machine, that you will re-make later, better, or more accurately, when your lathe is more operational. You redo some things that enabled you to get to a better equipped stage. Recursive construction.



(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LathePartsSpray.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: black85vette on February 10, 2013, 10:40:28 PM
"recursive construction"   I can appreciate that approach.

It does seem to be an affliction that once you get a basic shop together you start using the shop to make more stuff for the shop.  Sometimes the shop becomes the project and you don't make anything else.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 10:55:16 PM
I quickly seized on the power that I had been given to make what I needed instead of buying it. Cost was very important, because I was trying to save enough money to buy a piece of land to build a house on. All of th aluminum I used came from a $10 purchase of over 100 lbs of pistons at a marine engine rebuild shop. They had a barrel full of them, and when I told them I was building a lathe, the machinist there smiled and took me to the barrel and asked if I could use that. I said sure. He said take it. I gave the guys there the $10 for doughnuts, so it wasn't exactly a purchase, more a mutual donation.

Back to the power of what I now realized: so when the Gingery book called for a couple of purchased pillow blocks to do a temporary boring setup for the headstock, instead of buying pillow blocks, I decided to make some. Why not?

So I carved out a pattern, and then taking a cue from the steel cores, I decided to cast in a bearing -- but permanently. So I took a hardware store Oilite (sintered) type plain bearing, and soaked it overnight in some lacquer thinner to remove the oil impregnation. Then I taped up its ends and made it a sliding fit in a wooden pillow block pattern. Then I rammed that up in the sand like this:

(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LathePillowBlock.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 11:06:13 PM
Then I removed the bearing, and packed it full of greensand and replaced it in the mold. Now I could put The mold back together and pour the aluminum around the bearing without filling it. Afterwards when it was removed and cleaned up, I would drop the whole block in a pan of heated oil to re-lubricate the sintered bronze internally.



(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LathePillowCore.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 11:14:27 PM
And then I realized that since I now had a pillow block and a pattern I could use the new pillow block as a pattern by taping over its bearing, and start making two at a time.

That was the beginning of the idea of reusing things, for me.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheTwoPillowBlocks.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 11:42:46 PM
Making angle plates:

Angle plates are very important to making the lathe. They are used with pillow blocks to set up a temporary boring tool on the lathe ways to bore the headstock. They are also used once the faceplate is operational to mount many lathe parts for facing AND squaring.

In fact the angle plates are used to square themselves. This is done by mounting one raw un-squared angle plate casting on the faceplate, and shimming its base until the upright leg is square to the faceplate. Then another raw angle plate casting is bolted to that upright leg so that you have a "Z" shaped assembly.

The two faceplate legs that are bolted together are square to the faceplate. The second angle plate's other leg is roughly parallel to the faceplate, but not exactly parallel, because it is a rough casting. But now you face it with the lathe tool, and it is actually parallel to the faceplate. So now the second angle plate is truly square to itself.

The first angle plate is still a rough casting, that is just shimmed square. So now you unbolt it, and invert the assembly, bolting the second (true) angle plate to the faceplate. Without shims.

And then you face the first angle plate with the lathe tool. Now the two angle plates are both truly square.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/AnglePlates.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 10, 2013, 11:48:22 PM
Well, I guess that's all for tonight. I just wanted to thank black85vette and dsquire for your kind words. This is a great place to put this stuff!   :beer:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: dsquire on February 10, 2013, 11:53:23 PM
VT

You are the one that should be thanked. I'll be watching whenever you have time to continue. I'm sure it will be interesting.

Cheers  :beer:

Don
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: terryd15 on February 11, 2013, 04:29:00 AM
Hi VT,

Keep the reports coming, it's a very interesting project,

Best regards

Terry
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Stilldrillin on February 11, 2013, 05:41:17 AM
Hi VT.
What stories you tell. Of wonderful, successful projects!  :bugeye:  :clap:  :clap:

Please keep 'em coming. I'm thoroughly enjoying your progress.  :thumbup:

David D

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: PekkaNF on February 11, 2013, 08:26:25 AM
Great story and very inspirational too! Keep it coming. I enjoy very much reading this.

Pekka
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: tom osselton on February 11, 2013, 03:47:57 PM
I find this quite interesting and always pickup some useful information on most builds. I haven't made a furnace yet but it is in the near future. I have read some casting books and some on pattern making but haven't seen that trick with the soot used before how much force does it take to drive out the steel rod after? Do you drive it out cold or do you expand the casting with a little heat? I was thinking that it could be posible to use this method to line up the main bearings during casting.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Fredbare on February 11, 2013, 04:53:42 PM
Thanks VT for sharing, wonderful work. I have just built a furnace, you certainly have inspired me, keep em coming.

John
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: millwright on February 11, 2013, 05:13:38 PM
Thanks for sharing this with us, Great to see what You have achieved. the pictures are excellent as well. Waiting for the next instalment.
John
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Brass_Machine on February 11, 2013, 08:39:46 PM
This is some pretty cool stuff!

I appreciate the walk through!

Eric
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 10:54:13 PM
Wow, didn't expect this much interest! Thank you all!

 :mmr:


Here was a good day in molding -- three patterns finished and cast -- probably it was the weekend. Shown are the compound slide in the upper left, the compound swivel base at bottom, and the carriage apron, upper right.

The compound slide had some minor shrink cavities -- these were removed when filing it flat -- there was enough of a machining allowance to do it.

The compound swivel base has a steel cast-in rod which will be sawn off to leave a short dowel as a pivot. The base will get a slab of cold rolled steel attached to form the ways for the compound slide. The slot is where the compound leadscrew goes, the disk provides bearing surface for the swiveling motion and a clamping surface for the toe clips that clamp it in position when the desired angle is set. This is one of the more complicated patterns because of the draft in all parts including the slot, and the cast-in-place rod.

I felt like the lathe was really getting somewhere when I could cast 3 major pieces at a time. Of course all of these pieces needed to be filed and scraped, and needed gibs, gib screws, ways, etc to finish.

The carriage apron was very simple, but it accepts the most intricate casting of all, the leadscrew split nut. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of that one. But to give you an idea, you actually cast the threads of the split nut in place. You do this by placing a piece of the leadscrew threaded rod in the mold -- sooted of course to get it to release. In order for that to work, you also have to put the female threads in the wood pattern. This is done by using bondo with threaded rod coated with release agent. This is a very interesting pattern because of the unorthodox methods Dave Gingery used.

The threads came out well on my lathe -- if a little tight. For the half nut I used pot metal (zinc diecast) instead of aluminum, because it is harder and tougher. You can actually build the whole lathe out of that, instead of aluminum. But the filing and scraping will also be a lot tougher to accomplish.

The tightness of the split nut on my lathe was a result of the near zero thread clearance due to casting directly on a threaded rod. However with a little use, the leadscrew and the half nut both essentially lapped each other -- the hardware store threaded rod was a little rough to begin with, and in the process of running against the nut, the high spots were reduced, and likewise the clearance improved. Once that happened, wear and friction reduced leaving almost no backlash, and good fitting parts.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheParts.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 11:10:35 PM
Here I was beginning to make the tailstock pattern. This is the tailstock barrel being glued up on Vee blocks with a few aluminum "muffins" as weights. When you pour aluminum, usually (if you've calculated right) you have leftover aluminum. Pouring that into a muffin tin gives you some ingots for the next melt -- or gluing  weights, as needed!

The barrel has two dowel ends here -- these are core prints -- they actually represent holes in your casting. Holes formed by cores always are the opposite of holes in patterns, they are represented as solids outside of the actual casting. Next picture will show why.


(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheTailstockBarrelJPG.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 11:21:31 PM
Here is the actual tailstock mold ready to close up and pour.. The darker brown rod in the center is a baked sand core. The purpose of this core is to leave a hole in the casting. A steel rod wouldn't work here because the hole is too long. Even sooted up it would probably be impossible to drive out.

The baked sand core does leave a rough hole -- later to be bored out. The core is made up of sand, molasses water, and wheat wallpaper paste. It has a wire reinforcement inside, It is baked in a house oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. The molasses makes it smell like cookies baking, so passes the domestic bliss test for do-ability indoors.

You can see the impression of the barrel I made in the step before. The core fits in the space left by the core prints we just talked about. This is why core prints actually represent a hole in a casting, even though they look like a solid in the wood pattern.



(http://vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheTailstockMold.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: DavidF on February 11, 2013, 11:29:03 PM
Do you ever get the feeling that VTsteam could be dropped off on the moon butt naked one day and then fly himself back to earth on his home built space shuttle in less than a week????
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 11:33:22 PM
Here is the lathe tailstock cast and ready to break out of the mold. The heat of the molten aluminum has burnt up the binders in the baked sand core. It is now just loose grains of blackened sand, ready to pour out of the hole. The core is till intact outside of the casting.

To the right of the tailstock you see the sprue -- the hole down which the aluminum was poured, and the gate which delivered the metal to the casting proper.

I didn't mention the sprue in previous casting photos, and I hope everyone realizes these are cut off, and not part of the casting. A second sprue like column of metal is also sometimes attached. This is called a riser, and it is a reservoir of molten metal that is used to feed the casting as it solidifies. Metal shrinks as it does so, and the riser is necessary to feed more metal to prevent a castig flaw called a shrink cavity.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheTailstockCast.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 11:37:19 PM
Do you ever get the feeling that VTsteam could be dropped off on the moon butt naked one day and then fly himself back to earth on his home built space shuttle in less than a week????

I wouldn't want to leave all that cheese behind, though.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 11, 2013, 11:50:54 PM
Last picture of the evening. This is the lathe in its simplest form assembled to try out a test bar. You can see all of the parts cast earlier (and if you're interested you can probably pick out the pattens for each in the first photo in this thread).

The tailstock is in place, but not finished. It is only bored out but with no hand wheel or taper slide yet. A dead center of pointed rod is in place held by a couple of machinery collars. The headstock and a faceplate have been made, and the motor and drive are built. I haven't got photos of these things under construction, but do have more to say about them next time. You can see that many of the parts have been filed smooth -- this was before I had a milling attachment made up, or any chuck or work holding device other than the faceplate and a drive dog made out of some keystock and bolts (you can see it at the faceplate) for that matter.

The motor, by the way, was taken out of a clothes dryer. I went to an appliance store asking about motors, and they sent me out in back of their building to take as many as I wanted from mountain of broken or traded in washing machines and appliances destined for the scrapyard.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheAssembled.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 12, 2013, 10:46:36 PM
The moment of truth.  :zap:

This was a test bar I was turning just after I had made and mounted the tailstock and its slide. The idea was to see how far off the tailstock (and lathe in general) was, and set the tailstock over to compensate for the error.

Errors would be a result of headstock bearing bore, headstock bearings, headstock base attachment position, tail stock bore and attachment position, accuracy of bed ways and accuracy of scraping.

When I was finished turning the full length of the bar, I measured the ends and middle with my dial caliper. The total taper was less than 1/2 a thou over the full 12" length of the bar. I couldn't actually read it, since it was just over the line on the dial by a hair. I was amazed that I didn't have to adjust the tail stock set over at all.

How was this accuracy achieved with primitive tools and practically no measurement of position or angular orientation when building the lathe? The answer actually lies in the clever way that the headstock and tailstock are bored, and this is one of the more fascinating things about building this lathe.

To bore the headstock on a Gingery lathe, you complete the headstock base slides. Even though it will later be fixed in place, the headstock still has hand scraped slides, gibs and gib screws initially. You then mount the headstock and adjust the gibs for a close sliding fit. You fasten the headstock to the apron, so that it can be driven -- as if it were the cross slide. The cross slide is not yet mounted on the lathe.

Next you assemble a second temporary headstock, made out of angle plates and pillow bearings -- basically a bolt together structure that will support a driven boring bar. The boring bar is made up out of rod and a piece of lathe tool and placed in the temporary headstock. drive pulleys are added to the boring bar, and it is spun by the lathe motor.

You will start the boring bar rotating, then engage the leadscrew, which drives the apron and attached headstock onto the boring bar.

Now te question comes up, how do you get the boring bar exactly straight, at the proper height and perfectly parallel with the bed ways, because this will have a critical effect on the accuracy of the lathe.

Well the answer is, you don't. You just do the best you can by making a little gage out of sheet metal that the bar rests on while you tighten up the temp headstock bolts, and that's it for measurements.

Yet the bore comes out absolutely parallel (within less than a half thou over 12") because of the way you are boring it! By sliding the headstock over the ways, the bore MUST be parallel with those ways. Even if your boring bar is slightly angled (and it won't be angled much) the bore will be parallel. The hole it bores may be very slightly elliptical, if the bar is angled but nevertheless parallel to the ways.

Not only that but the height is also not overly important either. Because after you bore the headstock, you are going to remove the temporary headstock, and replace it with the  freshly bored casting and fasten it down permanently. Then fit it with bearings in the bore hole, ad the boring bar and pulley and get it ready to bore the tailstock. You will do this in exactly the same fashion you bored the headstock -- driving the tailstock with the apron onto the boring bar as the casting slides along the ways.

This means that not only will the tailstock be bored exactly parallel with the ways, but also that its center height will exactly match the center height of the headstock, and their bores will be exactly concentric!

This is a wonderful thing. At least it was to me, at the time. Precision without measurement, simply by the nature of a procedure. Pure elegance. There are several of these moments in the building of a Gingery lathe -- the making of square angle plates in a rotational machine, the boring of headstock and tailstock concentric and parallel, and the making of accurate surface plates by the method of threes, and hand scraping to high precision by simply looking at the pattern of oil paint on a surface.

These are amazing things that we can do.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheTaperTest.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Meldonmech on February 14, 2013, 03:22:02 AM
The machining procedures are very well thought out, Gingery must have spent a long time developing them with only a hand drill. What brilliant concept.
                                                      A captivating post, well done    David
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Henning on February 14, 2013, 02:50:04 PM
I have a hard time believing this!  :mmr:

Please continue!  :nrocks:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: mattinker on February 14, 2013, 07:23:01 PM
vtsteam,

Would you mind if I posted the link to here on the Yahoo Gingery Machines?

Regards,Matthew
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 14, 2013, 08:24:06 PM
Okay, Henning I might get some more up tonight if I have time -- I have to look through the photos, shrink them and get them up to photobucket, so it takes a little while but I'll definitely keep this thread going as I can. Thanks so much for the feedback!  :D

matinker, why not?   :thumbup:

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: nel2lar on February 15, 2013, 01:04:52 PM
VS
Have you seen the new book out. Build a back gear for your lathe.

I must say you have the touch, your casting is top shelf.

Enjoyed looking at you post and able to keep up with the build.

Don't stop now, it's a good feeling isn't it. Knowing you can make anything your mind comes up with.

I'll be watching you

Nelson Collar
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 11:53:16 AM
Hello nel2lar!
I've seen the back gear book advertised, but haven't read it. My Gingery lathe improvement program stopped a few years ago when it was packed away while I built a house. I'd love to get it back in commission and try a lot of new ideas I have for it. I hope that will happen this summer. Meanwhile I am able to access my Sears/Atlas lathe in a storage shed (well, access barely), so that's what I'm using now while working on the 4 cycle engine to steam project. Thanks for the molding compliment -- can't wait to start pouring iron when warm weather arrives.

To continue the story:

Here is a photograph of the stock Gingery lathe counter shaft and pulley drive setup for the lathe arbor and lead screw. I usually try to build things the way the original designer intended, rather than modify them from the get-go. Modifications are fine once I have an understanding of the original design and operation to compare them with. I don't like modifying major aspects of a design before I try out the original. I trust the designer made choices for specific reasons that I may be unaware of. On the other hand, once I've built something and tried it out in its stock version, if I think I can improve it for my own needs, I'm more than willing to start up the foundry furnace!

The Gingery style lathe drive uses an over-center lock to tension or slacken the drive belts with the pull of a big accessible handle (barely visible at the top of the photo). The frame is fabricated out of angle iron, and as in all things Gingery, is designed to teach the builder some new construction skill. In this case riveting -- using sliced-off pieces of 1/8" and 1/4" steel rod.

You can also see my homemade cast aluminum and sintered bronze (Oilite) pillow blocks in use. I mounted them on wood shims (not a part of the Gingery instructions)  -- I like these in general because they allow me to adjust the shaft alignment by adjusting the compression of the attachment bolts. Wood will compress a little compared to metal.

The angle iron for the motor mount came from a discarded bed frame. The open frame motor as mentioned earlier was salvaged from an appliance -- a case would make it safer, btw -- Terry Aspin shows one in his casting books being molded. Project for the future.

The belt tensioner Dave Gingery designed allows easy speed changes, instant emergency stopping of the drive, and easy removal of the lathe arbor -- which became important to me later on when I started to use cast-on arbors and a milling arbor with my lathe and the milling attachment I designed.

The leadscrew reduction drive belts are circular sectioned vacuum cleaner belts -- available most anywhere, often on sale for $1. I have a lifetime supply. Actually the original shows no sign of wear.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheCountershaft.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Henning on February 16, 2013, 01:10:29 PM

I must say you have the touch, your casting is top shelf.


Understatement!

Now I'm waiting for more pic's!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 01:45:14 PM
You guys must have missed the shrink cavities on the back of the faceplate in the photo above!!!
 :lol:

Well it's my accessory faceplate -- I have several, one is perfect. The one shown seemed good enough not to re-melt. But I have my good pours and not so good, just like everybody else. I had to re-cast my milling table twice.

But thank you all!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 05:39:51 PM
Here's a view from the other end of the lathe. At this point I had made Gingery's steady rest, on the ways here, and a bell chuck (holding the shaft to be machined on the faceplate.) The tailstock had been finished.

Gingery accessories also seen in the lower part of the photo on the table, right to left, two homemade boring bars, lathe dog made from bolts and keystock,  pair of cast smaller angle plates bolted together to be used as a faceplate vice -- similar in action to a milling vice -- with a built in parallel attached to keep the work square and near the end of the vice for facing. A larger cast angle plate.

And finally (non Gingery) a plumbing floor flange and short pipe nipple which I drilled tapped and set-screwed to to a stub arbor, and faced (the flange) flat. This became my first face plate, onto which I mounted the larger raw cast faceplate to face it and bore that square. Then I swapped out the pipe flange for the real faceplate and had a lathe!


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheandSteady.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 06:09:12 PM
Now that I had a lathe, I wanted to move on from making machine tools to something interesting. I planned to return and build Gingery's horizontal mill and maybe the shaper, too, but now I wanted to do something different.

What had caught my eye was a book by Cairns about Tesla disk turbines, and in it was a small turbine Cairns had built. Well I'd also been reading another old reprint of a magazine from the twenties that showed Delaval turbines of roughly the same size, and these also appealed to me. They had an old fashioned look I liked. Then I started reading Kurt Schreckling's book on the earliest model aircraft turbines he built, and finally decided I wanted to combine some features of all three. Cairns and the DeLaval' turbines had dual bearings -- in the case front and back. While Schreckling's had a central bearing tube. I thought about trying the Tesla turbine as either a steam turbine or a compressor, and this seemed to favor a cantilevered approach with a bearing tube out back. But for a case style I went with the old model DeLaval.

Well this thread is about the lathe, not the turbine, so to return to the subject, it became real clear to me that I needed a milling machine if I wanted to build it, because a Tesla turbine's disks have radial milled ports around the central shaft. I looked at the Gingery horizontal mill book and imagined spending months more building that. But I began to realize that the mill was essentially just a beefed up version of the lathe, with the addition of a mill head that could raise and lower. I'd also seen milling attachments for a lathe that raised a slide up and down. So I decided to combine features from some of this stuff, plus a rotary table so I could mill the Tesla disk slots.

First step I decided was to make a boring table for my lathe, and then mount a vertical slide on that. The vertical slide could take the rotary table. Well really the first step was to turn up a milling arbor that I could substitute for the lathe arbor, to hold end mills. If you look at the photo last post, that rod blank was being set up to become the new milling sindle.

Here I'm starting to make it:

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillAttachSpindle1.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 06:16:03 PM
Here it is turned to shape:

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillAttachSpindle2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 06:24:40 PM
And then, using the "Gingery way" I removed the lathe arbor (easy) and substituted for it the new milling spindle in the headstock, with a bronze thrust bearing, and reattached the lathe pulleys.

I could now drill it and bore it perfectly centered in the lathe headstock, running in the bearings, in exactly the position it would have when acting as a milling spindle.




(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillAttachSpindle3.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 06:38:16 PM
Withe the arbor ready, next step was making a pattern for a boring table and casting that. The design was somewhat like the Gingery lathe slides, though quite a bit heavier and longer. The tang is buried in the sand here already, so not visible.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTable.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 16, 2013, 06:43:26 PM
As I mentioned, I had to cast this one twice. But finally got a good pour.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTable2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:19:26 PM
Adding the boring table to the lathe was straightforward, file and scrape ways, add gib and gib screws, and it was attached. But still a rough casting. Now I needed to mill it flat. Of course I didn't have a mill yet. Or even a milling attachment, naturally, since that was what I was building!

So I decided to make a fly cutter that I could attach to an arbor between centers to do the surface milling on the lathe. It needed to be fairly wide in diameter to reach the milling table, and I wanted to use a lathe tool in it to do the cutting.

I made up a pattern of the right dimensions, and used a piece of 1/4" square keystock as a ruling guide, and later, a piece of it as a core in the pattern.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly1.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:23:41 PM
Patterns for the fly cutter laid up in the mold:

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: jcdammeyer on February 17, 2013, 12:27:33 PM
Nicely done.  One of the things I did on my Gingery was make a wider casting foot for under the head stock.  I cast ears onto it with the intention of pivoting the belt drive countershaft from that instead of the plywood base.   I found the wood between the belt/motor assembly and the headstock flexed leading to vibration.

Never did finish that as other projects got in the way.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:31:55 PM
The castings broken out. You can see the steel core which will be knocked out to leave a space for the lathe tool.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly3.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:39:20 PM
Drilling the arbor hole in the base of the fly cutter.

The casting  was then bored to size, the cover plate attached with screws, and the casting cleaned up all around.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly4.jpg)


Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:46:29 PM
After cleanup and boring the base side, the flycutter was turned round and the cover plate was drilled and bored.

The boring tool is homemade, per Gingery -- a piece of 1/4" drill rod (silver steel) forged, hardened, and tempered with the charcoal furnace, then ground to shape. It is somewhat flexible, but will open out a very small bore. You just need patience, and the realization that there is some spring involved. The last few cuts are made without moving the carriage, as the spring in the tool is gradually relieved to finish the bore.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly5.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 12:52:51 PM
And here is the finished fly cutter mounted on an arbor between lathe centers, doing what it is supposed to do -- milling a surface on the new boring table casting.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillFly6.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 08:49:35 PM
Also milling the side of the table. At this point, I'd decided to add removable bolt-on wings to the sides of the table -- these would be L shaped and take bolts for clamping flat pieces down on the table. Also some bolt on cross pieces that could be used similarly. Anyway, I needed the sides to be square and milled to accept the add-ons. The fly cutter worked well for this, too.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillTable1.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 08:55:47 PM
Cutting the side. I had to relieve the lathe tool for a long way to give it clearance, and make separate tools for each side, but it worked!


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillTable2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:06:00 PM
Patterns for table add-on pieces, and another smaller fly cutter.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons1.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:11:06 PM
Ramming up.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:16:21 PM
The mold cavity for the main body of the new fly cutter, with the steel core in place. It has been sooted in a candle as a release coating. Small holes are steam vents. White powder is parting dust.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons3.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:25:08 PM
Raw castings:


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons4.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:34:30 PM
Table extensions have been rough filed and drilled and tapped, ready for clean-up and squaring on the faceplate. Doing two at a time here makes it faster, makes them come out the same depth, also balances the faceplate load.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons5.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:41:15 PM
Also facing the rectangular bars. This time using two angle plates bolted together on the lathe like a vice to hold the part. This method again from the Gingery books.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons6.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:52:39 PM
Another Gingery work holding device for the faceplate is the 2 jaw chuck. Here being used to center drill the new fly cutter acsting.

The 2 jaw takes the place of a 3 jaw for round stock while the lathe is at its simple state. A little tricky to get used to at first since you have to indicate parts true, but really not that bad once you get handy tapping the fixture with a soft hammer to center. Practic makes perfect, Not a bad accessory considering it cost nothing but a little time to make. And for longer work you'd naturally turn between centers.

Anyway -- the flycutter is being started here.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons7.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 09:59:36 PM
The fly cutter further along, cover being bored. This time it is mounted on a short arbor held in the new milling spindle on the lathe. Since it's likely to spend a fair amount of its lifetime there, this is as good a way to mount it for machining as there can be.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons8.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 10:08:20 PM
The new fly cutter at work. Here it is truing up the inside vertical face of the table extensions I had just cast, mounted on the boring table.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons9.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 17, 2013, 10:19:50 PM
The lathe boring table and clamping extensions mounted, being trued. After the left vertical face was trued, the whole table an extensions were surfaced again to make them flat and even. Then the right vertical extension face was milled.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheBoringTableAddons10.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:06:59 PM
One of the things I realized in all of this was that there were three ways to adjust a Z axis in horizontal milling machines. The first is to have a knee or slide with the work on it. The second, less common way is to have the mill head adjustable in the Z dimension. Gingery's horizontal mill uses this method.

The third method which I had here developed for my lathe was to make a set of adjustable fly cutters to provide adjustment range up to the center height of the lathe These could be mounted on an arbor between centers, or a stub fly cutter. However this was mainly to be an intermediate stage in producing a vertical slide type, and in fact a rotary table version of that so I could mill the Tesla ports.So the next stage was casting the vertical ways and slides, which would ride on the boring and milling table as an accessory.

I would now use the milling table to finish those parts instead of laboriously filing and scraping them into bearing. I decided also that maybe I could re-use the library of slide patterns I'd already created in making the lathe. So I standardized on their dimensions, and realized I could add removable adapters to the patterns where they needed to be different than what was required by the lathe.

Here is one of the adapter pattern pieces being glued up.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert1.jpg).
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:11:15 PM
And here it is attached to the lathe cross slide pattern. It fills a hole where a steel pivot rod was required on the lathe, and builds up the side's thickness. I also added additional width to the slide land bearing -- with a strip of wood.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert2.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:15:15 PM
Here are three pieces that will become a single pattern for the vertical way base. On the left is the original cross slide way base, to the right are a big packing piece to add thickness and width, and a smaller piece which will form a right angle leg to bolt it to the milling table.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert3.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:18:43 PM
The leg is doweled as a loose piece to make molding easier, and has a fillet attached mad of Bondo. All of these add-on pieces have to have correct draft and fit in with the original pattern's draft.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert4.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:20:38 PM
Here are the pieces fitted together.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert5.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 19, 2013, 10:22:39 PM
And painted and rammed up in the mold. Note the draft on the loose piece.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert6.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Brass_Machine on February 19, 2013, 10:23:27 PM
 :jaw: :jaw:

Wow.

 :thumbup: :bow: :thumbup:

That is some serious building. Some insanely talented people on this board...
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: dsquire on February 19, 2013, 11:04:46 PM
VTSteam

(http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh490/DSquire/Main-2/Emoticons/wow_001.gif)

If ever anybody had any doubts about building their own equipment they now know that it is possible. No machine shop required. Just the desire to want it.

This is a fantastic thread. (http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh490/DSquire/Main-2/Emoticons/ThankYou.gif) for sharing it with our members.

Cheers  :beer:

Don
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 05:36:37 PM
Thank you BrassMachine and Dsquire!  It's a pleasure to post these pics here with this group of creative people -- most have never been posted anywhere. I kind of forgot about it until you guys asked, and now editing and posting them and writing them up brings back what an exciting time it was to be doing all this and learning about how tools worked, casting, figuring out how I was going to get to the next step, etc. I lived and breathed this stuff for one winter. My thanks in turn have to go to David Gingery for setting me on that course, and giving me the capability and confidence through his books. The guy ought to get a Pulitzer prize for those typed up pages and hand drawn figures in a half dozen little paperbacks that he published himself.

Anyway I suppose you want to see more of this project, so here goes.

The other side of the vertical slide with the added on piece on top. I've added a split dowel to act as a core print for a hole I want in the finished casting. The imprint it leaves will be filled with a sooted steel core, and that will be knocked out of the finished casting to leave a circular channel.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert7.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 05:46:01 PM
After casting these parts I was just about ready to mill them in the new milling and boring table. But since they would be rather high, I needed one more adjustable fly cutter -- of smaller diameter than the other two. Together the three would give me the full range for milling. This last one was essentially a boring bar, and could double as such. To make one you just drill two holes in a piece of cold rolled steel. Square one out to fit a piece of lathe tool -- I do this with a small triangular file -- takes about ten minutes to do. Then, tap the other hole in the end to take a set screw (fixing bolt). That's about it. This tool can bore, mill, and cut gears with the appropriately ground bit of lathe tool.

Here I'm tapping the end. Naturally not using power, -- just rotating the headstock pulley by hand, while keeping light pressure on via the tailstock wheel.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert8.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 05:54:42 PM
And here we are finally ready to mill the front face of the new vertical ways base. The face that will be milled will later get a slab of cold rolled steel attached. The trough is to take the lead screw.

I've bolted to the milling table the two plain bars we cast earlier -- now cleaned up and drilled and tapped to act as a vice. The screws which clamp the work are angled slightly downwards so they apply down force to the casting -- keeping it tight to the milling table. Since there are 4 of them they can accept irregular shapes. The other accessory castings -- the L shaped wing pieces have similar capability -- but they aren't used in this step. All four clamping pieces can be used at once if needed.


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert9.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 05:58:35 PM
Making the first pass with the milling table -- what a great feeling that was! It was working!



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert9a.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 06:00:38 PM
And the second pass.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert10.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: andyf on February 20, 2013, 06:45:44 PM
This is fascinating! Can hardly wait for tomorrow's episode.  Shame you aren't putting it out as a DVD.

Andy
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 20, 2013, 07:52:30 PM
Thanks AndyF ten years ago I thought I would write a book about it, which is why I have so many photos, but I never followed up on it. After joining you fine folks, it seemed a shame to just keep the photos unpublished just for a book I had never written.

I could still write one anyway, I guess. More step by step, like the Gingery books -- I would have to measure everything, and make drawings, and write instructions beyond what is just sampled here. And then look for a publisher somehow. Lindsay Books is no longer in business as a publisher -- and that was who I had thought it would suit best.

Maybe I could do it as just an e-book rather than a paperback. At any rate I will still post pix of interest in this thread through the end of the series. Doesn't seem to be boring anyone.

Thanks for all of your enthusiasm, guys!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 21, 2013, 10:27:55 AM
After milling the way location, that reference surface was bolted to an angle plate and then I faced the base of the vertical ways on the faceplate. I like these Gingery pattern angle plates because one leg is shorter and radiused -- so it can be placed closer to the edge of the faceplate, to accommodate larger work. Each long leg has one tapped hole and one through hole, for ease of bolting up. The base legs have two tapped holes. These are in line and work well with radial slots in a faceplate.

btw, the turned aluminum seems to have a good non- skid grip that I believe wouldn't necessarily be improved if it were polished steel or iron. I have a shiny purchased faceplate for my Atlas lathe, and don't like it quite as well. I may actually cast an aluminum faceplate for that lathe.

The ease of using separate mandrels for turning and milling by simply loosening two setscrews on pulleys in the headstock and transferring was becoming apparent. I liked it better than maintaining a single mandrel and removing the faceplate because it was difficult to maintain faceplate alignment -- even when marking the positions on faceplate and mandrel. After this point I started casting workholding fixtures, like faceplates, and chuck backing plates directly onto their own mandrels. They stay in perfect alignment that way, and it is therefore much quicker to change over.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert11.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 21, 2013, 10:50:20 AM
Now that the base is squared to the way face of the pillar (I guess that's the proper term) it is time to attach the steel slab that will be the actual way. The base is set on the lathe ways and a machinist square is used to align the steel piece. One screw holds it in place and two two small pre-drilled 3/32" holes at the top are spotted through to mark locations for drilling and tapping to accept the other attachment screws.

We are again using the actual parts we want to be in alignment as their own references -- in this case the lathe ways and the vertical ways are directly aligned with each other through the machinist square. Naturally you don't have to do it this way, and the vertical portion could be aligned with any flat surface off of the lathe. But it becomes a habit to use the actual parts for reference or metal removing operations, wherever possible -- and in many cases this does make a difference to the accuracy of operations. It's also a satisfying way to do things.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert12.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 21, 2013, 11:00:26 AM
With the vertical pillar made up it's time to pay attention to the vertical slide casting. First step is to machine the top flat, and then use that as a reference surface for doing the underside. I'm using the square bar workholders on the milling table here.

You can see the half round channel left by the core when cast. It is rough and undersized here -- it will be bored larger once the upper clamping piece (another casting) is attached.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert13.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 21, 2013, 11:05:52 AM
After the top was flat, I removed the rectangular clamping blocks, and attached the angle clamping blocks to the side of the milling and boring table. Then clamped the vertical slide bottom up to machine the wear pads.

Note that the L shaped clamping blocks can either be attached with the base leg inward -- to widen the boring table -- or outward, as done here, to bring the clamp bolts closer to a narrow workpiece.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert14.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 21, 2013, 11:12:46 AM
Cleaning up the inside corner of the wear pad.

After I finished milling this slide I checked the sliding surfaces with machinist blue, intending to do a final hand scrape to bearing. I was amazed that it didn't need it, and how little time it had taken to make the slide ready for use. I couldn't get over the savings in time -- usually it took a whole evening to file and scrape a slide and install gibs. And that was after a lot of practice. Now I could have a working slide from a rough casting in minutes. Just amazing!


(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert15.jpg)


Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Henning on February 22, 2013, 04:24:29 AM
Thanks a lot again for sharing! I'm watching and going like this  :jaw: most of the time!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 10:41:18 AM
Thanks Henning!

The lathe is an incredibly powerful tool. It can make the parts of itself, and other machines. It can become another machine. The fundamental thing to realize is that its essential is a rotating arbor, and a linear moving set of slides.

If you think that way, you can think about the possibilities for performing different sets of tasks. you can attach work to the slides part, or you can attach work to the rotating part. You can extend the number of possibilities with the slides by adding a third Z axis to them. And you can further extend the slides by adding a rotary position as well as a linear position. That is the function of the rotary table added to slides.

You can add a slide direction to the head to increase its versatility, as well. This is in fact what Gingery did when he came up with his horizontal mill.Once I had built my basic lathe, I pored through the horizontal mill book and realized that it really was a lathe with a vertically adjustable head. In fact during the construction of that mill you actually build a tailstock for performing some operations -- maybe that is in the dividing head book, and maybe it was a faceplate for the mill -- can't quite remember and I don't have the book in front of me. But anyway, the horizontal mill and lathe share a very close heritage.

One difference in the Gingery machines is that the mill is quite a bit sturdier in construction. I wished at that point that I had realized the connection between the two kinds of machines and had built  Gingery's mill first with an idea of making it truly a dual purpose machine right from the start, a combination lathe and horizontal mill. That is in fact what lead me to start designing parts to add horizontal milling capabilities to my lathe. It isn't equivalent, but it certainly allows lots of milling possibilities.

The great value of all this is not only to Gingery machines, but to any lathe -- or horizontal mill for that matter. A recent thread query here on madmodders was a very understandable question: what use is a horizontal mill?

Well if you think about it in a different way, it is a rotating arbor with a slide in three dimensions. So it can be of great use if you don't think of it as only a horizontal mill. It is actually also a lathe -- minus a faceplate and tailstock. And you can make those. It is also an end-mill machine (like a vertical mill) if you make a big angle plate and mount it on the slide or mount a vice with the jaws oriented vertically on the slide, and put a collet in the work arbor to hold end mills.

We have the same basics repeated in many of these machine in the workshop. If we develop flexible thinking about them, we can come up with solutions  to various milling and turning (and grinding) operations with limited equipment.

Not to say a Bridgeport wouldn't be a nice thing to own, or the more machines the merrier!

 Just that part of the fun, and often the necessity, is to use our limited resources to create new capabilities for what we have and what we can afford.

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 11:24:18 AM
One more thing -- forgot to mention. Besides its other essential components of a rotating arbor and a set of slides, a machinist's lathe also has a fixed bed way -- and this supports the tailstock, which becomes a fixed reference point. That's actually an important piece. A fixed extension of the headstock/rotating arbor.

The equivalent in a typical horizontal mill is the overarm!. If you attach a tailstock type barrel and adjustable plunger and center to a horizontal mill overarm, you have a lathe. In the case of the overarm -- this fixing reference beam slides in and out of the headstock, as opposed to the tailstock of a lathe sliding over the bed ways. But it can serve the same function. In fact a fixed overarm-- not necessarily circular in cross section, except at the attachment point, with a sliding, true tailstock could be made as an accessory to a horizontal mill if desired. I believe David Urwick designed a combination machine using an inverted bed ways, with a circular section, and a novel triangular sliding gib key. His work should be familiar to British model engineers, as he wrote extensively on this and other very interesting creations in the field of hot air engines in Model Engineer..

In the Gingery horizontal mill, there is no overarm, there is instead a fixed lathe style way. An "underarm" if you want to think of it that way. Either of these perform the same stationary reference function that a lathe bed way does.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 12:53:53 PM
One more thing I also forgot to mention -- the lathe analogue for the bed ways and tailstock  on a horizontal mill would be an overarm with tailstock type fitting and center. Ideally a usable taper which you could mount things in other than just a center. But I forgot to mention the analoge for a lathe's tool holder.

That could be any conventional type of lathe tool holder mounted to the horizontal mill's sliding table. That's quite similar to the way it is handled on some lathe boring table set ups.

In fact if someone had very reduced floor space, and for that reason alone, was considering a mini lathe of limited capacity between centers, it might be possible to acquire at small cost a used horizontal mill of comparatively  husky proportions, but reasonably small footprint, which could be adapted into a very strong lathe -- capable of doing good heavy cuts, with a big faceplate capacity. And usable as a mill as well.

6" of vertical travel on a horizontal mill translates into a 12" facing capacity as a lathe.

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 09:39:23 PM
Back to the Gingery lathe milling attachment......

This is the clamping piece that goes over the vertical slide. The semi-circular channel will will form a clamping bore and eventually accept any of the lathe's cast on arbors and work holding attachments. The original purpose here is to accept a rotary table for milling the Tesla disk slots which was the original motivation for this particular project.

Here the clamping piece is being surfaced.

(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert16.jpg)

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 09:47:07 PM
Here the clamping block has been attached to the vertical slide, and the through hole is being enlarged. Afterwards it will be bored to exact size with the boring bar.

The vertical slide ways have been bolted to the milling table. This drilling operation again takes advantage of the fact that the workpiece is in its proper finished working position, and being driven along the ways to insure that the hole is parallel with the lathe ways, rather than drilling and fabricating from measurements and measured set-ups.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert17.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 22, 2013, 09:56:48 PM
And here is the basic vertical milling attachment put together and ready to fly cut a surface -- probably as a test -- can't quite remember what that workpiece was for!

Notice that the lathe's faceplate is being used as a vertical milling table, and that the lathe's 2 jaw chuck is bolted to that as a work holder. The milling spindle has replaced the faceplate arbor in the headstock. The lathe is now backwards, in a sense!

We are now at the stage where we are able to take advantage of interchangeable parts, and have built up a library of useful and reusable patterns to further extend this machine, or build others.

While it looks finished in this photo, the faceplate/milling table is still not a rotary table -- there isn't a means of rotating it yet, but it can be clamped and used to mill parts on a large flat surface -- larger than the horizontal milling table, at this point.



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert18.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 23, 2013, 10:43:17 PM
The final stage in building the milling attachment was adding a big angular measurement sector of aluminum to the vertical slide, and a handle and arm (tommy bar) to rotate the work arbor and rotary table (faceplate).

The handle can be seen mid right, and there is a black aluminum index strip also attached to it that gives a reading against the graduations on the sector. I only made one index mark, since there was already sufficient accuracy for my needs with such large spacing of the graduations, but I could have put 10 marks on the black strip and made a vernier reading that way for measurements of tenths of a degree.

To make the markings for the sector, I printed out a scale with a computer printer from a layout I did in a simple cad program. This was glued to to the aluminum sector. To turn the work arbor a full 360 degrees you would need to do that in 4 steps, releasing the arbor to bring the handle back to zero after turning the full range of 90 degrees.

The handle had a wonderfully simple mechanism for attaching and releasing to the work arbor, as needed. The work arbor was 5/8" diameter. So I simply took a 5/8" machinery collar (shaft collar) and removed the set screw. from it. The handle rod consisted of a length of 5/16" steel rod with the end threaded to match the setscrew thread. It simply screwed into the machinery collar. You could grip the arbor by twisting the handle, or release it by twisting in the opposite direction.  The top of the rod had a cast-on grip of aluminum. I used a wooden file handle as a pattern when I cast it. This whole mechanism was practically put together from ready-made components.

To turn the rotary table to any particular angle all you do is twist the handle, tightening the machinery collar on the work arbor and then rotate the arbor to the angle desired.

If it is more than 90 degrees, I would first rotate to 90 degrees, twist the handle to loosen the collar and bring the handle back to zero, then twist to tighten and proceed to the measurement desired. That's all there was to it.

This is the last picture in this series. It is of cutting a scroll housing for the Tesla disk turbine (for an experiment trying it as a compressor, rather than a turbine). The Gingery lathe, and own milling attachment are finished and doing interesting work.

Thanks to madmodders for asking me to write about this, sort through these old pictures, and get them out for people to see. I hope it stimulates people to imagine new possibilities for their own equipment if they have a limited shop or limited means. Again thanks also to David Gingery's inspiration and guidance through his books.

 :mmr:



(http://www.vtsteam.com/Gingery/LatheMillvert19.jpg)
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: dsquire on February 23, 2013, 11:34:52 PM
VTsteam

(http://i1248.photobucket.com/albums/hh490/DSquire/Main-2/Emoticons/ThankYou.gif)

For taking the time to organize and post all that you have on the "Gingery Lathe and Accessories". I am sure that this will change a few peoples minds (in a good way) about casting their own lathe and accessories, I know that it has changed mine.

Cheers  :beer:

Don
 
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: mhh on February 24, 2013, 02:31:42 AM
The gingery is an amazing project!

I've always liked that you really don't have to have any prior knowledge to machining to get started!

Nice work!  :thumbup:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: RussellT on February 24, 2013, 04:28:08 AM
I liked that, what a great way to learn. :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Russell
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: millwright on February 24, 2013, 05:19:13 PM
Well Done, A great project and what a good way to learn some engineering practice and machining technique for you, I think by the time you had finished it you could say you have served a good apprenticeship :clap: :clap: :clap:
John
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Henning on February 25, 2013, 02:20:24 AM
I feel a need to be able to cast aluminium all of the sudden...   :proj:

Thank you very much for sharing!  :nrocks:

Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Rob.Wilson on February 25, 2013, 11:45:32 AM
Inspirational post VTsteam   :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

One of the best threads I have read in a wile  ,TRUE home shop engineering from foundry to machine  :med:  very impressive .



Rob
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: NormanV on February 25, 2013, 01:37:12 PM
I've started to build a Gingery lathe on two occasions. First time, when I lived in Kenya, I had a local foundry and had all the castings made in iron and then machined at a Don Bosco training school. I left Kenya before it was complete and gave the lathe to the Don Bosco school.
Second attempt was when I lived in the Falkland Islands, there I had to be totally self reliant. I got hooked on casting and made all sorts of stuff. I used peat as fuel for the foundry, there were unlimited supplies of the stuff, free, other than the effort of digging it.
Now I am back in UK, I brought the incomplete lathe with me and reading this thread has made me want to get started on it again. I am a bit concerned about the cost of fuel as it will need to be bought this time round.
Unfortunately mine is no where near as good as vtstream's.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 25, 2013, 03:32:27 PM
Thank you all very kindly. It is a privilege to be here, for me. Great doings all around!

Norman,

you can use wood to melt aluminum. Believe it or not I made a lot of the turbine castings from a clean up fire of fallen pine boughs. If you do this, use long tongs and do it when the fire has built up some good glowing embers. Put the crucible right in amongst the embers, and it will certainly melt. Don't worry if embers or wood bits drop in. They will actually absorb oxygen, and cover and protect the melt. Just skim before pouring, and you will see shiny metal underneath.

Or even better, you can use charcoal from such a fire in a foundry furnace if you make one. In this case Just rake out the glowing embers with a leaf rake and put them out. They will be charcoal. It's not hard to build up enough for several melts this way.

This charcoal is very hot burning compared to store-bought charcoal briquets. In fact out of curiosity, I once stuck a 2 foot length of 1/2" dia concrete reinforcing rod down into the aluminum melting furnace -- using homemade charcoal, just to see what would happen. Well what happened was that rod pretty quickly started to slip down into the furnace, so I pulled it out rather hastily. looked like a fireworks sparkler on the end. After the furnace cooled there was a small puddle of iron at the bottom.

Another way to make charcoal would be to put cut up wood scraps into your furnace and once it is going well, cover it over and block the tuyere. The wood will convert inside the furnace. It will only yield about half a furnace full, but it will probably be sufficient of a melt, since some of the room in a furnace is normally taken up by the crucible.

Don't let the cost of fuel stop you!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: doubleboost on February 25, 2013, 04:03:06 PM
I have just read this post
You are putting many of us to shame
Very well done
A great post with good pictures
Thanks
John
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: micktoon on February 25, 2013, 04:30:14 PM
Hi vtsteam , I will just echo the other lads comments, WELL DONE and well posted  :clap: :clap: :bow: :bow: , Very interesting about the wood burning melt too.
  Thanks for posting  :thumbup:.

  Cheers Mick :beer:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on February 25, 2013, 05:01:18 PM
Thank you micktoon and doubleboost!

After I built my lathe I happened to read a copy of Guy Lautard's Machinist Bedside Reader. In it was a description of a lathe built in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. It was amazing for me to read, having built the Gingery lathe, under of course, extremely different circumstances. There is an uncanny resemblance in the machine -- though theirs was far more sophisticated than mine in the end, and better built.

It seems to be reprinted here on the net:

http://machineshop.olin.edu/resources/documents/Prison%20Camp%20Lathe.pdf
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: jcdammeyer on September 11, 2013, 02:32:52 AM
Nicely done.  One of the things I did on my Gingery Lathe is run two rows of counter sunk screws to hold the 1/2" CRS ways to the bed casting.  I found that solidified the ways a lot. There is a photo here:
http://www.autoartisans.com/gingery.htm

I now have an ELS running the Gingery so I can thread and taper without gears.

John
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: mattinker on September 11, 2013, 04:52:43 AM
VT,

I'd like to encourage you to continue this thread as it is well written with great photos and full of use full things!!

An example, reading back over it, I saw your idea of casting in bronze bushes, I think I missed it first time round, worth noting!

Regards, Matthew
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on September 11, 2013, 07:41:46 AM
Thank you jcdammeyer, and mattinker  :beer:

My Gingery lathe is stored waiting for shop space right now. Maybe I will have it out by again this fall as I will be making more space.

I have wanted to work on it and dress it up/improve it for some time. Now that I can cast iron, for example, I'd like to make a new saddle and cross slide. Also  aluminum gears for screw cutting and back gears maybe. I have already added home made QCTP and a 3 jaw chuck. The QCTP shares holders with the Craftsman lathe I am using now.

So it may continue in the future. Thanks for asking!  :beer:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: flyingtractors1 on September 12, 2013, 04:00:17 PM
OH - MY - GOODNESS, Vtsteam!!!   :jaw:    :jaw:   I just stumbled onto this string and am amazed, incredibly impressed and duely humbled.  Your work makes mine look like child's play.  Your documentation of the build processed is priceless literature.  This is truly publishable as a record of the best that can be achieved.  Thank you for demonstrating what can be done and for sharing the literary and pictoral process.   Ralph
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on September 12, 2013, 09:40:17 PM
Ralph, thank you! But I feel that way about yours and many other people's work on this forum, work of amazing quality that is definitely beyond my abilities, while my stuff seems pretty straightforward to me, and in need of improvement. You and others here are an inspiration to me to learn how to make things well. So thank you, too!   :bow: :beer:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: LJP on October 05, 2013, 01:07:01 PM
VT, as you know I am new here at MadModder. I came upon your thread on the building of the Gingery Lathe and read it with true amazement! The skills you developed are as important as the machine you built (maybe the skills are more important?). I have had an interest in casting, watching John Doubleboost's videos, and now seeing your work has inspired me to persue casting a bit more seriously!
Are the Gingery books the place I should start?
Very interested in what you said about melting with wood fires, can you recommend a source for more info on that?

Amazing Work!!

Thanks, Larry
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on October 05, 2013, 05:02:15 PM
Hey Larry, thanks!!

I do like the Gingery books a lot. The first two really cover all of the basics -- others add refinements. The first two are "The Charcoal Furnace", and "Build a Lathe from Scrap" -- I believe those are the correct titles. They were like $10 each when I bought them -- probably a little more now, but still, bargains.

But I also like Terry Aspin's two backyard foundry books as well. They are British books, and I had to import them back at the turn of the millennium -- but I believe they are more easily available here these days through Amazon or some other source. The illustrations are really well done (drawn by Mr. Aspin himself) -- just great little books. So those are the four books that got me really going. All are short paperbacks.

They really get you excited about casting, and with minimal materials -- the straight old fashioned DIY stuff. These books will give you the straight scoop in the traditional way, and both produce excellent castings if followed.

re. melting aluminum with wood -- I don't know of much information about it -- I just experimented with a spring cleanup bonfire of fallen pine limbs. I put the crucible in the glowing embers at the base of the fire (technically therefore it was a charcoal fire), and waited for it to melt, which it did.

I've also seen it rapidly approach melting stage when I held raw castings up over my charcoal making barrel when loaded with wood. I did that to break up the castings at "black heat" but wasn't fast enough removing it in one case an part of the casting melted off and fell into the fire.

Aluminum only needs about 1300 degrees F, and just about any fire big enough will produce that.

Keep us posted Larry on your melting exploits!


Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: LJP on October 05, 2013, 07:55:05 PM
VT, thanks for the book titles. All have been ordered, plus a few.
Larry
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on January 03, 2018, 11:22:22 PM
Just finished restoring the photos to this thread that Photobucket dropped.  :beer:
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Toolshed on March 01, 2018, 12:45:02 PM
And thank you so much for doing that. Your build and your photos are INCREDIBLE!!  Making it into both a lathe and mill is pure genius.
I am planning on building the ginger shaper and possibly the mill. I already have a 6" metal lathe.

Y'all feel free to check out alloyavenue.com if you're interested in metal casting.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on March 04, 2018, 01:03:05 PM
Thanks Toolshed  :beer:

Hope you'll post your progress here with the shaper.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: Brandt on March 08, 2018, 05:43:59 AM
And thank you so much for doing that. Your build and your Bathmate (http://www.woundedwarriorregiment.org/) photos are INCREDIBLE!!  Making it into both a lathe and mill is pure genius.
I am planning on building the ginger shaper and possibly the mill.

Amazing work, Steve. That's masterful craftsmanship right there. I wish I was capable of something like that. Improving little by little though!
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on March 08, 2018, 09:28:34 PM
I'm sure you can be, Brandt. I started out not knowing exactly how a metal lathe looked, or worked. I just followed the Gingery Foundry and Lathe books, and realized what all the parts did gradually as I was building it. I learned how to use a lathe by building it. At the time (2001-2002) there was little on the Internet to tell me what I was doing, or what it would look like in the end. I could kind of make out what it was by the cover photo. But other than building it, I'd had no experience in machining.

That's why I always recommend those books. There are plenty of more sophisticated ways to cast, scrape, machine all over the Web now. And better machines to buy, at reasonable cost. But for me I am extremely glad I started out that way, and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. It was one of the most fascinating and liberating things I ever did. Making something like that from nothing. Some old pistons, some sand, some charcoal briquets, and a discarded file for a scraper. Changed me. Changed what I could do. Changed how I think.
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: nel2lar on August 05, 2018, 10:42:44 PM
VT
Haven't been around very much, life gets in the way at times.
You have done a gorgeous job on the lathe, very nice and I am sure you should be proud of all the work you have in it.
Love all your write ups and the pics are great.
Keep the chips flying.
Nelson
Title: Re: Gingery Lathe and Accessories
Post by: vtsteam on August 06, 2018, 08:02:42 PM
Thanks Nelson!  :beer:  :wave:

Well 16 years later, doing the same thing again!  :dremel:

https://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,10542.0.html