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Compound mod for the 7x10 Minilathe.

Immagine
Tired of crancking the compound back every time you need to modify the angle on those minilathes ? I was, indeed, so I decided to modify it in a easy-to-use way. Here what I did: I have replicated the degree scale in mild steel, and slotted an hole inside: I have then make some hole on the compound base and threaded M3: The holes are 4 so, at least for the most useful angles, there are always 2 screw locked: The compound rotating base has been shimmed with a 0.8mm shim  so that when the compound is fully screwed and locked on the pivot, it can still rotate: I'm very satisfied of this mod. It's since 2015 I have it and since then I have not noticed any strange behaviour. No chatter ( or at least no more than before ) but now angleing the compound is a really easy thing. I' still thinking a similar mod for the negatives angles btw, because it's not usable when ( for example )  you are threading inside. It's always 29,5° but

A DIY Bandsaw for the shop-

Immagine
I needed a bandsaw. I was really, really tired of cutting stock by hand. I found an old issue of Model Engineer's Worskshop ( number 2, Autumn 1990 ) that has a nice article on a "seems easy to build" bandsaw and I told me: "why not try to do it ?" Here the first page of the article: And here the general arrangement: Does not seems difficult does it ? So I started collecting materials. I bought some 160mm aluminium, some bronze for the bushings and some 50x25 steel tubing: The first step was to turn the three pulley. They are way too big to be taken on my 7x10 minilathe. At least they are too big to be taken in a chuck so I begin with making three tapped hole to mount them directly on the spindle: And here you can see how I mounted them on the lathe:  As you can see I'm really pushing my lathe to his limits: Here I'm creating the channel that will hold the belt that would friction-drive the bandsaw: In the sam