wood lath

Pattern making is an art, either by machine or traditional it is the key to success in casting.
mite5255
Posts: 1740
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 am
Location: Caboolture Qld Australia

wood lath

Post by mite5255 »

Well it appears that I have just brought my self a wood lath for $75 from a work colleague, I have no idea of the condition of the lath or even what it looks like but he assurses me its only been used once, and its been sitting in his shed for a few years now just gathering dust. I now have some thing else to learn, what's that story about old dogs and new tricks :roll: I have not operated a lath of and kind since school and I left in 1968, so heres the list of things I have to learn at the present moment
1 Metal casting
2 operating a mill
3 and now a wood lath, this learning caper just never ends :roll: :lol: And I hope to purchase a metal lath at some point so that'll be more learning
When life gets tough, remember: You were the strongest sperm :)
dallen
Posts: 2321
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:06 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: wood lath

Post by dallen »

hey Mike, you gotta get yourself one of these and stick on the front of that mill.

Image
David and Charlie aka the shop monster

If life seems normal your not going fast enough" Mario Andrette
mite5255
Posts: 1740
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 am
Location: Caboolture Qld Australia

Re: wood lath

Post by mite5255 »

dallen wrote:hey Mike, you gotta get yourself one of these and stick on the front of that mill.

Image
UMM ummm what is that, is it a power feeder

Mike
When life gets tough, remember: You were the strongest sperm :)
dallen
Posts: 2321
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:06 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: wood lath

Post by dallen »

stand alone Z axis dro scale. I did have a little 6 inch vernier caliper stuck on there so I would have some sort of depth measurement, gotta have something cause when your running and inch and a half end mill and your fixing to break thru you want to know when to back off on the down feed. I hung one one inch cutter up you talk about crap going everwhere it was slinging stuff faster than my ex.
this picture shows the DRO package that I put on it back at Xmas, yea I know I was nice to me. but it was only 2 axis. I didn't want to spend the extra 150 dollars for he Z axis. and if I go CNC on it this scale has a port to slave it to a computer with.

But my intentions are to buy just the 3 axis head put it in plave of this one, and put this one on the 12 inch lathe.

I have the parts and electronics I just gotta do it and thats put a powered head lift on it, finally got started back on it last night.
Image
David and Charlie aka the shop monster

If life seems normal your not going fast enough" Mario Andrette
mite5255
Posts: 1740
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 am
Location: Caboolture Qld Australia

Re: wood lath

Post by mite5255 »

That looks impressive Dave :) The person that I know that has a small ( has about a about a A4 table )cnc engraver and dose a bit of work for me was over here yesterday and everyday he's here he keeps saying I should cnc my mill, yesterday he was going through on how he would do if it was his. I will look into how much it would cost, the computer side maybe a bit much for me but ya don't know till ya try

Mike
When life gets tough, remember: You were the strongest sperm :)
dallen
Posts: 2321
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:06 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: wood lath

Post by dallen »

I have most of the electronics, I need a three axis control board, I think not sure about it right now but I think I am going to use a gecko, all you hear about them is good, but the minute I buy one they will probably be bucket of crap. oh well, And a Power Supply I have the motors, or I have two of the motors and a bunch of other stuff, gotta get in gear and make mounts for the motors, I have a small mini mill also so thats the one gonna get trashed first. But first I gotta figure out whats wrong with the qucik change box on my 12 inch lathe.I guess its what I get for buying a used lathe.

that scale and the dro make all the difference in the world when using the mill, I had that little caliper on thee but it was more pain in the ass then it was help this is big holds the setting good and when it powers off you tweak the handle and its back on at the same spot. and the numbers are big enough to see. and I can have it counting up or down. The DRO in the left of the picture is set to read to 5 decimal places which is pretty close, I don't need it that precise but it makes me look at things closer.

backs kicking my butt tonight I will grab a picture of the motor and associated parts for the column drive I am gonna put on it and post it to you
David and Charlie aka the shop monster

If life seems normal your not going fast enough" Mario Andrette
mite5255
Posts: 1740
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 am
Location: Caboolture Qld Australia

Re: wood lath

Post by mite5255 »

As I said Dave that looks impressive, I would love to cnc mine or at the very least power feeders on the x y and z, the main issue I would have is cost and the knowledge to work out the computer side of things. Over time I will have a few more discussion with the bloke I know with the little cnc engraver and see what comes up

Mike
When life gets tough, remember: You were the strongest sperm :)
mite5255
Posts: 1740
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 1:11 am
Location: Caboolture Qld Australia

Re: wood lath

Post by mite5255 »

Dave my mill is a rf30 is this the type of thing your talking about, is it Similar to what you have http://www.dontscrapit.com/Pennsylvania ... l-kit.php5

Mike
When life gets tough, remember: You were the strongest sperm :)
dallen
Posts: 2321
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:06 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: wood lath

Post by dallen »

yep looks like the stuff in the picture is identical to what I put on my mill, other then the brand name on the DRO head the rest of the face plate has every thing in the same spots. The stuff that I got from Shars is made by Sino, chinese but decent stuff.
David and Charlie aka the shop monster

If life seems normal your not going fast enough" Mario Andrette
User avatar
Harry
Site Admin
Posts: 1020
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:15 am
Location: Onyx California
Contact:

Re: wood lath

Post by Harry »

I think the best way to cnc a mill if it is your only mill is to include rotary encoders for each axis. Basically you add a dial on each axis for manual use, from what I understand a lot of jobs are a pain on a cnc mill compared to just doing it manually because of the setup. A nice side benefit is that once you do this you also have DROs for each axis and moving a fixed distance from a point can be done in Mach3 by typing in a new location on the DRO so say you are facing a piece and you want to take another 0.005" off to clean it up better. You just tell the Z axis it is actually 0.005" higher than it really is and run the facing script again or use the encoders to move the piece by hand.
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints the sinners are much more fun...
Muller
Post Reply