So I bought a lathe

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Mr. Python

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Hey There
After years of wishing I had one and making a plan, normally the Chinese drill press lying on it's side, finally gumtree and momentary fiscal easing coincided to create opportunity.
The trigger was needing a part for my shotgun, seeing it for $2.50 but then seeing they wanted nearly $90 to send it to me.

I figured, if I had a lathe I could make that - so I started on Gumtree ... I know nothing about turning or lathing so myself and google went out looking.
I bought a Myford ML10 which seemed compact enough but still had an auto-feed function. Says made in England not China which is allegedly a good start.
About 20 hours of YouTube instruction vids were absorbed, I believe, a functional level of understanding was acquired. (i.e. enough knowledge to be dangerous probably)
We were getting close to setting it up... was waiting till I knew a bit more.

The idea was that Robbie and I could learn something new together we always did that. But life changes our plans sometimes so it lay in the back of the car for a few weeks.
But then as an escape I launched into the project probably with a dash of overkill.

The lathe came with a Tray table. The tray is cool but the frame it was welded to was a hack and bash job that that was thrown together with bits of pipe.  I recon the dude welded it together then shaved the feet till it was level. There were 5 different paint jobs all started and never finished. Totally asymmetric - I labour this point because my plan was to build a little cupboard into the frame so as not to waste the space and to have a comfortable place to put all the bits and pieces that came with it, chucks, face plate, cutting tools, centers and the like. It doesn't look symmetric but it will be with a tad more tweaking - so be gentle with the chirps. I wire brushed the frame till it was shiny then resprayed it.

I built the cupboard from ripped pallet planks and I even added a drawer that is almost the full size of the tray. This was my 1st drawer ever and it was complicated by the irregular shape it had to slide into. I can report though that it slides deliciously and doesn't catch except for the 1st bit as you put it in. It's almost full already.

This is what the lathe station looks like so far:

Lathe%20Station%201.jpg
 
The%20Cupboard1.jpg


So some help from the knowledgable:
- The little Back gear key is missing which means you can only run the lathe in the slow speeds max 170rpm. I was thinking of making my own because I can only get a replacement from the UK and the postage thing kicks in again. It look simple enough to make, I have quite a good picture and I can measure the slot and the the gear that it goes into maybe even make a pratley steal mold to copy.
How hard can it be.
I have an old brake disk which I assume is made from Cast iron the same as the gear it must mesh with. Is it a good idea to cut a chunk out of that and shape it?

This is what Google say the bit looks like:
Back%20Gear%20key.jpg


Dental Work
- The bull gear has a degraded tooth as does the corresponding back gear tooth - can these be repaired? They are not off completely, but there are chips missing.

Stock to play with.

- Does anyone know where I can get some bits of metal to actually make something? Off cuts or the like. I would also be looking for a piece of dik angle iron. A 100mm long bit of 100x100x10 if that even exists. I want to make an angle plate. Then i can attach a vice and or the compound slide vertically to the top slide and pull off some light milling.
 
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