What sort of useful bit and pieces would you make? I have managed to borrow a bit of time on a lathe, mainly to knock up a couple of LED light housings. I thought whilst I had it available I might make some of the parts which I’ve been too tight to buy, such as a decent headset press, a split-able headset extractor (not quite sure how this will work, but it will be better than the standard copper-pipe-with-slits-in.

What other useful things could I make? Not sure if the machine has digital read-outs, so precision might be limited to my vernier calipers…

Cheers

-a set of bearing presses/drifts specially sized to remove and install your linkage and hub bearings: with a 10mm hole in each so you can use and old axle and nuts to do the pressing.
-Offset rear shock bushing/mount kits.
-if you have cartridge hubs, see if it would be feasible to make a set of spacers/adapters to use them in different axle standards should you ever change fork/frame.

Hub bearing presses is a good shout. I use Hope hubs on all my bikes so adapters for different axles isn’t a problem, but tools for shifting bearings is a good plan!

If you are doing tooling for bearings you may want to consider a press/removal tool for bottom bracket bearings. Press could be combined with headset press.

If you have time to knock some stuff up for others i need some adapters made for my Cyclus head set press to do 44mm headsets and 1.5 headsets.

Chainring bolt spacers? BB thread chaser?

But if you are like me you will spend way more time making tooling to hold other parts than actually making the parts you need.

a retro-fit eccentric rear axle for my hope hubs so I can use them single speed on vertical dropout frame, I love the WI eccentric hubs I have but the bearings just don’t last….

Eccentric rear axle would be good. Might be a bit advanced for me I’m afraid! I guess you would machine the outer profile of a normal axle (which would be hard enough to get accurate for press-fit bearings), then put a 10mm drill in the chuck and mount the axle where the tool sits, and shift it off centre a suitable amount?

I assume a 10mm through axle, as standard QR wouldn’t grip it hard enough?

Would you get enough adjustment to take up chain slack? The max it could be off by would be about 2mm, as the axle is 15mm thick in the freehub, so wall thickness is only 2mm.

If you used a standard QR the centre hole would only be 5mm so you’d have more adjustment, but drilling a 5mm hole 135mm long 😕 Would that work?

If you have time to knock some stuff up for others i need some adapters made for my Cyclus head set press to do 44mm headsets and 1.5 headsets.

Ditto. I’m sure I could grease your palm with some silver. Email in profile… 🙂

Failing that, a steel rear axle for a Hope XC hub would be my choice. Fix the only weakness of Hope’s best ever hub….

Headset press adapters should be easy enough. Could one of you put up some simple dimensions? Including:

– diameter of hole for threaded rod (I am using M12 for mine. What does cyclus use?)
– inner diameter of headset bearings (so the tool sits within the headset cut and keeps it square)
– outer diameter of headset cup – the size of the part which will do the actual pressing

It’ll be quite simple, a short tube with hole down the middle and one end thicker than t’other, with a step between the two outer diameters.

amedias – Member
a retro-fit eccentric rear axle for my hope hubs so I can use them single speed on vertical dropout frame, I love the WI eccentric hubs I have but the bearings just don’t last….

i did that for a non disk screw on hope hub, mate runs it in his kona and it works a treat. i think next time i would make it 10mm thru axle, because that would be a lot stronger/safer

if i had a lathe

.. i’d trade it in for a cnc milling machine, cos i am shit hot with one o those!

Sod all that lot. I’d build my own design hubs to go with my own design frame and forks along with any parts I need for them.

Headset press adapters should be easy enough. Could one of you put up some simple dimensions? Including:

Right. I can’t measure the headset sizes without removing my forks, and it’s too late for that tonight. Can do tomorrow though…?
The hole on my current adaptors is 16.0mm though, on a digital calliper

It’ll be quite simple, a short tube with hole down the middle and one end thicker than t’other, with a step between the two outer diameters.

Yup. That’s it. 🙂

Need to order some material so it’ll be next week till I get round to it. M16 bar to go down the middle? Should be ok.

Would you get enough adjustment to take up chain slack? The max it could be off by would be about 2mm, as the axle is 15mm thick in the freehub, so wall thickness is only 2mm.

the WI hubs use an M6 or M8 bolt and a stepped collar/washer that sits in the dropout, so you could do that, you really only need an offset of about 2mm as that will give you 4mm of total adjustment and with careful chainring choice thats normally enough, and it upsets disk brakes less as it’s only a washer or two to correct.

An adaptor to let me use my old cyclus 1 1/8 headset press with 1.5″ headsets.

Something to convert a 10mm chaintug to a QR chaintug. Only surly make the tophat washers. Not worth somebody else doing but it would be a quick job yourself.

Hope bearing drifts.

How about some nice candlesticks?

I’d Make a javelin.
Or a new car.

Yes, those please….

DrP

at the moment…headtube spacers 😆 they cost a bomb on crc!

+ 1 or is it 2 for headset press adapters. Lost my stepped adaptors for park. Was thinking of getting some machined to avoid high cost of new. Can anyone give me dimensions of steps etc.
Happy to remimburse if yr happy to make.

OK, am happy to make some headset press adapters. I will need dimensions though. Will order enough material for say four sets.

What other useful things could I make? Not sure if the machine has digital read-outs, so precision might be limited to my vernier calipers…

Digital readouts are a bit hit and miss, it’s all down to the play/tigthness of the threads on the compound and cross slides. We got a new school with new kit and was hoping for a 3D CNC but nope.

I have made bearings for my rear suss links. A bearing extractor for rotted/rusted/collapsed bearings is useful. A head set press would be easy with the right steel.

A flywheel for my V8.

Was planning to use normal shop aluminium for my press. Bad idea?

What other useful things could I make? Not sure if the machine has digital read-outs, so precision might be limited to my vernier calipers

I am not a machinist but from my understanding this should not be a problem. One of the problems that CNC machines can sometimes have, which digital readouts on manual machines would share is that of backlash. That is the slight play on any thread.

I always use digital verniers on my work, cos my lathe is from the 1940s.

One of the problems that CNC machines can sometimes have, which digital readouts on manual machines would share is that of backlash.

A proper machinist will have been taught – and a CNC program will have been properly written – to avoid problems with backlash.

Anyhow, I do have a lathe, and I don’t use it for making anything I can buy – too time-intensive. I do use it for stuff like machining hubs to take different bearings:

Fun with a lathe… by Ben Cooper, on Flickr

Though, when I was bored, I made a miniature cannon 🙂

Micro Munitions by Ben Cooper, on Flickr

Me too for the Cyclus adapters if poss thanks.

I now seem to need a lathe, not sure what I would do with it but must have one.

CNC’s are run on servo drives resulting in no backlash.
The only thing you will or should compensate for is cutter wear which will be altered by the tool info needed for each tool!

If I had a lathe, I would turn in the morning.

CNC’s are run on servo drives resulting in no backlash.

Well, depends – most of the ones I’ve used use a servo to drive the leadscrew, so you have the same issue with backlash in the leadscrew that you do with a manual lathe.

🙄
How can you program to allow for backlash?
Can you guarantee that the backlash is the same the full length of the leadscrew?

I don’t think so!

A leadscrew is used but different set up to a manual lathe!

I guess we have different experiences. My experience is with lathes where the handwheel is replaced with a servo – small modelmaking ones, really. So with those the leadscrew is the same. You avoid backlash by not changing directon – of course this depends on the program and what you’re machining.

Some I’ve heard of also do it the way you do it by hand – you feel for the point where backlash has been taken up. A motor does that by measuring the load.

Of course there are mechanical ways of massively reducing backlash as well – opposing nuts, Delrin nuts or bushings, stuff like that. But I was taught how to use a lathe by a dour Clydeside machinist who would have sneered at such things 🙂

I’m with bencooper on the backlash issue. All CNC controllers (that I’ve used) have backlash compensation parameters.

Can it vary along the length of the leadscrew? Of course, especially on lathes where the screw wears faster closer to the chuck than the tail. If the difference is significant AND you need the accuracy along the whole bed then you need a new leadscrew! I was taught how to use a lathe by a dour Welsh machinist who liked to make parts which fit together 🙂

cncs have ballscrews not lead screws and they have tiny amounts of backlash.

i was taught how to use a lathe by a dour lincs machinist, who is also my dad!

on the backlash front – you can remove a lot of the backlash in lead and ballscrews by using an anti-backlash set up. Just building a 2D scanner with ballscrews and on the Z axis backlash is not an issue as gravity takes care of it but in the X axis I am using 2 ballnuts with a spring/lump of PU in between. Obviously the spring tension can be overcome but using one too powerful can increase the friction. But in a high use system ballscrews

when you are tought to use a manual lathe (especially very worn training ones (Sentinal Works, Shrewsbury!) they teach to work around backlash..

Thank you that’s the set up “ball screws”

I was taught by a number of guys where I served my time as a precision engineer in both manual and cnc applications.
Working on Bridgeport, XYZ and Yamasaki to name a few.
Work undertaken was a mixture of aerospace, automotive, nuclear, petrochemical and general precision.

Went for a play on the lathe today. It is not what you would call sophisticated. About 10ft long, probably 60 years old, under a good 1/4″ of grime and muck. Tools all piled into a heap in the corner. Digital readouts… no. Backlash? A good half turn on each handle. I’m not sure the chuck is spinning true either, think the main bearing might be knackered.

However, it does turn things round (although probably doesn’t turn round things). Will have a better play with it next week when the alu arrives.