Crafts made of wood and round copper are good to make on a small home lathe. What is common between a lathe and a drill? For an ordinary person, far from production, nothing. But for the modern Kulibin, this is a real Klondike of ideas. A person with imagination and skillful hands will easily craft his home lathe from a drill.
Purchased or homemade lathe - which is better?
The cost of small factory-made lathes makes you think about an alternative solution to this problem. A self-assembled lathe machine can be much cheaper. In order to realize your venture, the most expensive thing you need to buy is a drill or hammer drill, which has the function of a drill. Consider the option of making a do-it-yourself lathe from a drill for a private home business. The simplicity of manufacturing such necessary and useful equipment is amazing. The simplest lathe can be made in one day "on the knee". In the manufacture of the most unpretentious lathe, you will need wooden blocks, plywood, tin, good glue and other materials.
Materials for making a lathe
Before you think about how to make a lathe, you need to calculate, but will it cost more than the cost of the necessary materials than the cost of a factory tool? To do this, it is better to view a list of all the necessary materials and equipment, determine what is available and calculate how much you need to spend on the missing items.
The drill lathe kit is as follows:
- electric drill;
- sturdy table or workbench;
- at least three clamps;
- self-tapping screws;
- bolts, screws and nuts;
- files;
- incisors;
- sandpaper.
But if your home business has grown, it requires high productivity and precision in the manufacture of steel parts, in which case you need to fork out and purchase an industrial-made lathe with a powerful electric motor, a rigid bed and accessories installed on it.
What does a lathe consist of?
Any lathe has in its design the following main components:
- Bed of the lathe. Basis in machine tool industry.
- The headstock with a power unit, in this case - a drill.
- Tailstock. Its location along the axis should correspond to the axis of the headstock. Otherwise, marriage will come out during work.
- An emphasis is required to install the cutting tool. Its location should be as close as possible to the workpiece set for processing. It is advisable to make such a support table that will allow you to safely work on a makeshift lathe from a drill.
- The bed of the machine determines the basic location of the nodes of the lathe and ensures the reliability of the entire unit. The powerful bed, equipped with reliable legs with correctly installed and coaxial nodes, is a full-fledged lathe. A small bed can be mounted on a massive table or workbench. The assembled lathe from a drill on this type of bed is easily transported and transported.
- Purchased factory equipment in the form of cutters will facilitate the work on a lathe from a drill.
It should be noted that the processing of materials on the resulting device will be limited. On such a home-made device, it is possible to process wood, copper, aluminum and its alloys, that is, any soft materials. On a do-it-yourself lathe from a drill, the steel part cannot be machined.
Work process
A piece of thick plywood is well suited as a bed. It has a flat surface that will help in the coaxial installation of the front and rear headstock. The drill can be fixed by any available method. The main condition is that it must be rigidly mounted. In our case, consider an example using clamps.
Prepare the main element of power traction. For the convenience of assembling a homemade lathe from a drill, we will prepare a clamping device for fixing the drill. Take a metal clamp, after remaking it a little.
It is necessary to fix the clamp, which will subsequently clamp our drill. Fix it to the bed. We clamp the drill with a clamp fixed to a clamp. Thus, a rigidly fixed front headstock with a power unit was obtained.
Lathe support
In a similar way, we will make the tailstock of a lathe from a drill. It is necessary to install the tailstock, applying a second clamp, always in the same axis with the front. For convenience, a bearing with a pressed axis sharpened under the cone is perfect for the tailstock. As a fastener for the part, you can use a cartridge.
We need a third clamp for the support table. This is the so-called professional turner support.
For the convenience of moving the caliper along the axis of the part, it is desirable to make a hard groove on the base of the bed. The manufacturing method is as follows:
- Two even planks are cut out of plywood along the length of the lathe.
- Then they are rigidly mounted on the bed.
- Between them, the base of the caliper is inserted, ensuring its reliable movement along the axis.
Such a simple and reliable device will provide ease of processing parts.
An ideal support for a drill lathe is one when the support has the ability to move both along the axis of the lathe and across it. With it, the turner will be able to freely hold the cutter during processing. The support is brought close to the part, which ensures complete safety in operation. If the emphasis is far from the workpiece, then the turning tool may be pulled out of the hands.
Tool required for machining a part
It is possible to process a part fixed in a lathe with cutters. This is especially true for those parts that consist of various alloys. The cutter is securely attached to the caliper, which allows you to grind copper, brass products and parts from other soft metals. As a cutter for processing a wooden billet, a sharpened bench file - a rasp, is suitable. Cope with the work and file. A well and properly sharpened car spring trim also works great as a cutter.
How to fix a large diameter workpiece on a machine?
To attach large diameter workpieces to a lathe, you will have to stock up on the plan with a washer, which is mounted in the electric drill chuck. Its use makes it possible to grind parts of large diameters.
On a homemade machine, you can carve balusters for the stairs, make wooden dishes with your own hands and at your own discretion. The machine is perfect for the manufacture of round candlesticks, and indeed any round wooden products and products from soft types of metals.
How to duplicate wooden products from blanks?
To copy balusters to a staircase under construction, for example, you can use a copier. What is a copier and how to work with it? Everything is ridiculously simple. The necessary product for the stairs is made. An additional device is made of a drill to a compact wood lathe, on which a baluster made in exact dimensions is mounted. The second copy is made according to existing sizes.
Many have seen how wizards work on duplicate keys. The "native" key is inserted into the copier, and all the bulges on the workpiece duplicate its bulges. There is no need for continuous measurement of the part. The turned part turns out an exact copy of the original. The principle and approach are the same.
Drill Lathe Drawings
Having supplemented the homemade lathe with just a few details, you can significantly expand the functions of such equipment. Using it, you can paint a part or grind a twisted mesh along the entire length of the workpiece. You can use the unique features of a drill not only in a lathe. You can also make a drilling machine on the same bed , which will work no worse than the factory one. The diameter of the drill depends on the chuck in the drill. To increase the diameter, adapters or drills with shanks suitable for the chuck will help. Making a milling machine, recognizing and understanding the capabilities of a drill, is not difficult.
Electricians will appreciate the use of a homemade lathe when winding windings for transformers at home.
In conclusion, we can state: a simple at first glance power tool with proper and proper use can expand its capabilities and become indispensable equipment in home production. The main thing - before you try and learn how to make a lathe, you need to be patient.