Turning Rocket Tooling

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sambo
Posts: 957
Joined: Sat May 16, 2015 6:04 pm

Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by sambo »

Wondering if any of you real geniuses out there can help me - what do I use to bore a long straight hole on my lathe ? I'm trying to turn some 15mm coreburner tooling to fit some new tubes I have. I'm going to re-use the spindle but I need to bore a long hole through the first rammer to meet the length of the spindle and the hss bits I have are WAY to short and the hole is too narrow for a boring tool ?

do I use a gun drill ? if so, any recommendations on what type and where to get one ?
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biffo
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Re: Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by biffo »

Hi Sam you can buy long drill bits from engineering suppliers,if you can get one you want the sort that's meant for your turret with a taper fit,then you can run a reamer down to finish it off. You might try somewhere like Buck and Hickman or You might have a local supplier.B
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Pyro-Gear
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Re: Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by Pyro-Gear »

Sam you can buy long series drills on EBay the big problem you will have is that due to spindle bore on your lathe you will only be holding the rammer by the depth of the chuck around 20mm, so you’re going to have at least 120mm hanging over the bed, and trying to get a center on that is going to be difficult, what you need is a center steady like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMCO-UNIMAT-3 ... SwAuNW5v0u Emco stuff is expensive but you may find one for your lathe a lot cheaper.

Depending on the length of the spindle I would guess around 70mm? it should be feasible if you step drill using various drill length’s.
sambo
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Joined: Sat May 16, 2015 6:04 pm

Re: Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by sambo »

Ah ha , thank you to both of you - yes, ken - now I ebay for long series drill bit there is a ton of stuff that comes up. I'm really in a dilemma as it's readily apparent buying the lathe is just the tip of the iceberg - there are a lot of extras, a bit like pyro ! and it's quite addictive once you get into it. The bed on the c1 is just too short really, I can't turn 3/4 inch tooling with it for example as it's too crammed. Should I sell up and by a bigger lathe but that would take me months to save for.

Ken, if you were buying a lathe for turning most things up to 1lb tooling - what would you get ?
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Pyro-Gear
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Re: Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by Pyro-Gear »

Sam for my home use I use one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Lathe-Br ... ZPsGblLL_g if you talk to Harry direct you will get a better deal, the lathe will cater for most of the UK requirements regarding tooling.

I don’t know what you paid for your micro lathe but I suspect a return price on EBay to be around £200+
sambo
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Joined: Sat May 16, 2015 6:04 pm

Re: Turning Rocket Tooling

Post by sambo »

Case of wish I'd asked you first....

that looks like a good deal. I paid £230 for mine - it included some bits and pieces and some tooling with it so it wasn't too bad. I need to have a careful think.
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