Recently a friend asked me to keep an eye out for a bench lathe, I picked up a 10” Atlas quick change long bed for $100 that needed some work. One thing was the half nut being stripped out, after cleaning and filing the pieces I put them in their holder with a smear of autobody filler in each one and clamped them to the leadscrew which I had sprayed with Pam. Here’s the pieces with a coating of graphite ready to ram up in the sand. And then the new pieces out of the mold, a little hand filing and fitting, and they worked perfectly.
I was gonna cast them in bronze but I couldn’t find my flux, lol. My buddy is as old as me, so I’m pretty sure the aluminum will outlast him !
It drives me nuts that people in other places can pick up a 10" lathe for $100. Seems everywhere but here in fact. Here you're lucky if it isn't $1,500 and beyond used up. Ugh..
Obviously the nice result you got was impossible. That is because what you did is too simple. No trident gate, riser, high aspect pouring basin, no taper to your sprue, no spinner, and pouring basin had no step and was not square or rectangular. What I am doing here is sort of poking good-natured fun at myself and others trying hard to follow “good” casting practices by following somewhat complicated procedures. You just got busy and did it with a very good and useful result. Way to go and thanks for posting and reminding us that sometimes straightforward is good enough. Denis
Glad you replied. I started to say "and any surface porosity will just hold oil and help with lubrication", also in fun. My goal in the realm of improving casting practice is to try to make it not much harder than a simple sprue like he did.
Get Dave Gingery’s book and build one, easy to scale up or down. This one here needs other work besides the half nut, the compound rest is broken in half, cross feed driver is sheared, headstock bearings need replacing, 2 gears need to be made, and there’s no tool holders or tail stock chuck. It’s only a bargain because I already have a machine shop and can fix it.
I never learned “good “ casting practices, my first one was a big hole in my yard with charcoal in it and a pipe and an old vacuum cleaner for air. I screened the dirt and made an open face casting with it in an old cast iron frying pan, it was a cover for a 63 Ford steering box. When I was done I put the dirt back in the hole and replaced the sod.
