Seriously Considering Mini Lathe/Mill - Is It Feasible?

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As long as each 110 circuit comes from a separate leg. Try and explain that to a landlord. I've been around rental properties all my life. Grew up in the business.

But the point is moot; the OP is looking at 110 machines. If it were me I'd look for a small shop space to rent but I'm not in his shoes.
 
I owned an apartment building for 10 years in Seattle in the 1990s and I belonged to the landlord association, and got the newsletter. Being inside the Seattle city limits makes it hard to evict for anything but not paying the rent.

My problems never got down to what tenants were doing or what they had.
I simply wanted them to pay me money and never call me on the phone with problems.

I tore up nearly every floor in every bathroom due to rot from water on the floor. I crippled in floor joists, gerrymandered new plywood over that. I put in new vinyl floor. I put in base boards. Then I would drive home through miserable traffic.

I didn't care if you have a machine shop. Just don't flood the bathrooms.
 

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Getting too much more into rental law and tenant/landlord relationships is probably not the direction of this board and is likely to lead to the thread being shut down in my estimation. I won't do anything laid out as not being permitted in my lease and I'm not going to permanently modify my apartment or mess with wiring to get the results I want.

What does concrete board do that, say, plywood wouldn't and how heavy is it? Would a much lighter and more portable solution such as interlocking foam/rubber mats help also?

I'm aware I couldn't do any abrasive operations such as sanding or grinding. I can sneak time in for most projects at school on a grinder if they're simple (like sharpening HSS tools)
 
Concrete board is pretty heavy, much more than plywood. It's also brittle and breaks fairly easily. The rubber mats are a thought but it would be difficult to sweep up filings. For your purposes I'd use plywood.
 
An 8 ft folding table would support a couple of small machines. As long as you run them slow, you shouldn't fling chips off the table. You could glue quarter-round moulding around the edges to keep chips and stuff off the floor.
Take a hard look at Taig lathes and milling machines. They are extremely well made (in the US,) and are inexpensive, precision mini machines.
 
You would be better off buying tools and socking them away until you can use them. Same with parts and barrels. You will not make money with a couple dinky machines unless people have changed. You work in a machine shop? How many times did people come up to you with projects? Once you have the machines and want to charge 1/10th of what something is worth, people start to disappear. Buy up stuff you know you will use and stash it away until you can use it.
 
I own a LMS, Hi-Torque Mini-Mill:

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3990&category=1387807683

Picking a machine should be driven by it's usage.
Obviously, not suitable for cranking out AR receiver from chunks of aluminum in a production environment.
Drilling and tapping rifle receivers? PERFECT.

Never looked back. Great "little" machine- big enough for 90% of what I do, a little more Z axis travel would be nice though. Put a chuck on instead of the collet and real estate disappears quickly. I fitted it with bluetooth DRO, calibrated and accurate.

The R8 spindle is a "big boy" feature- and it makes finding compatible tooling much easier. Brushless motor, infinitely variable speeds. Well made machine.
 
I don't know where I gave the impression that I would be doing so for money, but I didn't mean to. Should I decide to get a machine or two, it will be for my own use and development
 
I make quite a bit of money just turning firing pins on the little lathes. They paid for themselves rather quickly. For the OP, a miniature machining center could be what he needs. Good quality tools will do everything large ones will do-they just don't have the physical capacity to do large work. All the principles are the same, and they are a lot of fun.
That said- big tools can do small work. Small tools can't do big work.
 
dakota.potts,

If you have steel manufacturing around you, check the local scrap yards, as I have seen good older lathes and mills sold for scrap. I bought two good fork lifts that were sold for scrap that way, when I had my fabrication shop. A friend of mine bought a 10' bed Clausing lathe at a steal, from our local scrap dealer. I, myself, just missed a good six foot bed South Bend, Turnado, lathe one time. They had already torched it in two, right in the middle of the bed. I cringed at the sight. I bought a Johanson radial drill/drill press this way, for $500, and only had to put a new rubber vane in the oil pump. I think it took #3 Morse taper bits, and would drill up to 2-1/2" holes in steel. Sometimes you might have to do some work on one, but you can get some good deals by looking around. Also, some machine shops are willing to part with older machinery for cheap.
 
If you are disturbing other tenants, most landlords will find a way to remove you. There are lots of reasons available in most states if the landlord wants to document things. I have tenants who pay me on time, don't flood their bathroom, replace their own light bulbs, and plunge their own toilets. Most are well past their one year lease and have no intention of moving. If I start getting calls from them about the new guy who is running a machine shop in his spare bedroom, that is going to get my attention.

I would only purchase a mill if it had R8 spindle. There is an incredible amount of R8 tooling on the secondary market at great prices.

http://shopmasterusa.com/
My current work-space is a little damp, but I'm planning to purchase another building with a dry area to set one of these up.
More expensive, but I'm a whole lot better at writing a program than holding consistent speed turning the wheels. If you price small jobs to where you are paying your overhead, tooling, and some scrap, and count your time as experience, I don't think you will have trouble finding small jobs not requiring an FFL that will go a long way towards paying for a small work space and decent machines. Especially if you are near a farm community.

If you get a bigger machine, make sure you have a plan to transport it. If you have to pay someone to deliver that may cost almost as much as the machine itself.

Here is a good test for you. Figure out what depth of cuts you can take with the various machines you are interested in on the materials you will be working with, then go into your lab and try to d one of your school projects limiting yourself to those depth of cuts, tool diameters, etc. See how long until you are pulling your hair out. I've worked on some 60HP CNC machines. Machines you could stand inside without looking ridiculous. Machines that can take off a half inch at a time without knowing it. Trying to do even small work .050 or less a pass would frustrate me quickly.
 
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I can relate to how you want a lathe and vertical mill. I went thru that for years until I found a small Atlas 10" lathe. I wouldn't call it precision and the mill attachment was almost worthless. Later got a Jet lathe and bench mill that was much better. One of the bench rest barrels I chambered on that lathe set the world record for 10 shots at 300 yds in the Unlimited class in the late 70's. After over 30 years as a now retired machinist/tool maker I would again like to have a lathe.
 
I have never been a breakneck machinist. In fact, I can't remember the last time I took a cut on a lathe deeper than .050" on steel. It seems from research that these little machines should produce less noise than a washing machine or dishwasher, so I see no reason it would disturb other tenants. I'm not really planning a "machine shop" anymore than buying a sewing machine would constitute a fabric mill. Just a small machine or two to make some small pieces for myself and get some practice in. I would likely do a lot of plastic to practice operations such as threading
 
Check the local personal ads or advertise that you are looking to rent garage space. I see a lot of it where I am from, and even rented my garage out for storage for 100 a month.
 
Actually, that got me thinking. When I had a storage unit in CA, every time I would go there, a band was practicing in one of the 8X10' units. That way they didn't disturb anyone. You might be able to set up shop in a storage unit pretty cheap.
 
The small machines don't make any more noise than a sewing machine. You can run a Unimat in one bedroom without disturbing someone in the next bedroom.
 
Ha, ha. Now that is funny. Comparing a Unimat to a sewing machine. About thirty years ago my buddy had a Unimat and the belt WAS from a sewing machine. You would be lucky to take a .005 cut in aluminum with out the belt slipping. I was walking around Harbor Freight last week. They have a small bench lathe cheap. Allegedly you can thread with it. Check it out.
 
Gunplummer, is it that little 12" bed? I think they quit stocking or selling any large lathes, as they don't show up on their website now.

They used to have a 8" or 10" swing by about 24"-28" bed, and I think it had about a 0.7" spindle bore, that had some lever type change gears, and was belt driven, that wasn't too bad. They had a cabinet with it, setting in their showroom in Kenova, WV. It used to have a price on it of around $899.00.

I would say a table top would work, but you couldn't make heavy cuts with it. Though that may be all he needs, too. That can be bought for around $599 I think.

I had a "12 x 36" geared head, that I bought from Blue Ridge Machinery, and it was surprisingly quiet. My 72" Cincinnati lathe was noisy and loud.
 
Dakota, look around for an old Sears Craftsman lathe that was made by Atlas. It runs on 110, is quiet, doesn't' take up more than 2 1/2 x 4' of table space.

You can still get any part to rebuild it, and you have changeable gears and an automatic gear feed.

There is also a milling adaptor available for it with which you can do small jobs.
 
One thing to keep in mind, about those little lathes that are table top, from Harbor Freight and Grizzly, is that most of the gearing is plastic. What kind, I'm not sure.
 
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