Who has machine tools?!?

[XEMON]

Finally bted and trammed the mill today 🥳

Making chip for the first time, now I need to figure out what to do with it 😅
Thanks Jonnydread for the body 👍

[DocsMachine]

The one on my website isn't complete. I sent the table off to be ground back to straight-and-true a few years back, and posted about the re-rebuild over on the Tinker's Guild. Lots of good information in there, too.

I've also got digital copies of the manual around here, somewhere, too.

Doc.

[KMDPB]

Those wires are before i wired the the freak drive. Came with a full set of collets. It came with all the over arm parts except for the support, but luckily that'll be the easiest part to remake. It's funny, when researching the machine the interwebs led me to your write up, which I wasnt aware of before hand.

[DocsMachine]

Noice! Looks like it's in running condition, too, though the loose wires at the top of the column worry me a bit. Already has a VFD installed, which is a big help.

The big score is the vertical head, including the drawtube and presumably the collet adapter. Hopefully you got some collets with it? The old 4NS collets can be somewhat hard to find...

I have a head, though I haven't had a chance to finish rebuilding it, and I didn't get any of the collet parts. If I ever get that up and running, I'll probably use an ER holder, or, I have a rare set of Canadian-made collets that fit directly into the NMTB-40 taper.

Did you also get the overarm parts?

Doc.

[KMDPB]

Got a Nichols horizontal mill, toolroom model with vertical attachment so I can be like DocsMachine !

[No Have MSG]

I build leaf springs, the punches are for the holes and cupping. I have some big old lathes converted over to make coil springs, we just don't do them anymore since it is too much of a pain. Have some other machine tools too, a lot of it from the 30's through the 50's, a lot of it converted to newer electronics. My straightener shows it was rebuilt by Boeing in 1954.

[Axel]

Ooh, whatcha stamping?

[No Have MSG]

Some cute little toys you guys have there.

Excuse the mess, just took over running this part of the company. The guys before were slobs.

[Chuck E Ducky]

It works well for the projects I have used it for.

[XEMON]

How do you like the jet tabletop mill?
Starting to look at smaller mills ...

[Chuck E Ducky]

Cafe build I’m restoring for a customer of mine.

[WORR13]

whats the bike?

[Chuck E Ducky]

Some of my shop tools.

[DocsMachine]

So I just picked up a new-to-me lathe, a 250lb 8x20 Harbor Freight that has something I'v never had before. It has a belt tension lever. When and why would I use it? What purpose does it serve (obviously add tension to the belt, but to what purpose)? Any help would be great.

-Generally that's when you have two or more speeds (pulley diameters) coming off the motor. The lever is a fast way to detension so you can swap from high speed to low, etc.

I've also seen people use it to release the drag from the motor, when doing hand operations- that is, things like turning the chuck by hand, to wind in or wind out a tap, or to check concentricity as you're dialing in something in the 4-jaw.

Doc.

[XEMON]

Heat + weight = droopy 😅