Why reverse a lathes direction?

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I'd agree about handles. I had a needle file go most of the way thought the palm of my hand. Not because of it's cutting pressure but because it caught on something.. Another bad idea – it was sharpened so that it could be used as a scriber – really helped it on it's way. I was lucky that nothing was damaged. I had a rather strange dull ache for weeks.

I generally use good quality warding files with handles and a couple of larger ones 10in 2nd cut. Vallorbe from Axminster but they call the warding files miniature and come in a set. They are a bit pricey but having removed serious amounts of metal with stubs files of old they seem to be the only ones that measure up.

John

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[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Left arm on the headstock if you must rest it somewhere.

I use a pillar file with handle the right way round, saves having to stop lathe and reverse direction.

Normal lathe rotation, right hand would also be on handle cut can't hold camera as well.

Reverse lathe roration and reversed file, right hand would be holding tip of file. If anything did catch the file would be thrown away from you.

 

Edited By JasonB on 02/09/2015 08:08:35

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

Should the lathe ever take up politics then reversing direction might be a useful skill to have ?

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I don't rest my arm on anything. I file much the same as I would on a bench with work in a vice but the angling of my left arm does need to be different at times on a lathe. I suspect I file like this because my 1st job at work was this 4in cube of steel that some months later finished up as a 1.6900" perfect cube, all via a a large 2nd cut file. Draw filling not allowed. The files are bent so that they flatten when the pressure is high enough for them to work efficiently. It's a dice. The spots being applied with a drill in vernier scribed boxes to show if they are positioned within 0.001". Character building including the blisters.

My unpleasant experience was at work cleaning up arc welding on a right angled part. Something that does need care as there is a part of the work which can catch and push the file with some force. Like many accidents down to stupidity really. Should I have been using a needle file – maybe if it had a handle but something with a more substantial handle would be better. The file happened to be in my top pocket so I just used it rather than fetching another. A number of them were done without any problem then ………………

John

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[Anonymous]

My lathe is too big for me to hold a file, as shown by JasonB in the second picture, without my shirt touching the collet chuck. Anyway, I'm left handed, so when using the file with normal lathe rotation neither of my hands are over rotating bits.

Andrew

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Another way to hold a file to work on the lathe, hold file with handle away from you, under the work, run lathe in normal direction. As with always, the b****** chuck gets in the road, but it does work, and I'v got long angle lathe files to do it with.

Ian S C

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Good grief is there no common sense left in the world. It's not precision filing so no need to worry if you are right or left handed. Keep both hands to the tailstock end, left in front, right behind, rotate forward or reverse as you like with file above or below as necessary.

[JonParticipant @jon]

Big difference to freehand filing a block in a vice to filing in a spinning lathe John, I can do them both and quite different.

With a turning spindle the file tends to skate off so you need the support of the head stock or toolpost to rest on. Unsupported have far less control, anything can happen and it probably will.

Some of us work to less than a thou finished Bazyle.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I don't have any problems doing what I do Jon. and the files I use don't skid off but maybe that's down to me, maybe it's the file or maybe it's the speed I run the lathe at.

John

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[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 00:59:09:

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

,

THANK YOU … Mr John [Socrates] Stevenson

A nudge towards sanity, by reductio ad absudum

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 03/09/2015 07:05:42

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/09/2015 07:03:49:

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 00:59:09:

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

,

THANK YOU … Mr John [Socrates] Stevenson

A nudge towards sanity, by reductio ad absudum

MichaelG.

.

I was being deadly serious.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 08:25:32:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/09/2015 07:03:49:

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 00:59:09:

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

,

THANK YOU … Mr John [Socrates] Stevenson

A nudge towards sanity, by reductio ad absudum

MichaelG.

.

I was being deadly serious.

I'll tuck the idea away for if at some point it looks useful. Tool post milling attachment, toolpost grinder why not tool post flap wheel etc failing that angle grinders are made to be used by hand.

John

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[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Not quite an angle grinder but I do use the 50mm Roloc flap and sanding wheels in a cordless on parts in the lathe. Ideal for blending in faceted cuts into a curve when crowning flywheels etc. So that makes two of us John anyone else willing to own up?

J

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I did try angle grinder with thin cut-off wheel for parting off in the lathe. No problems and no panic. Did a good job except for the clearing up afterwards.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Haven't used the angle grinder with a flap wheel, but I did once use it with a thick cut off wheel to modify a batch of cast iron pulleys that were chilled and that hard I could not get a carbide tool to cut. Made a bracket to fit the tool post and hold the grinder.

Ian S C

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I remember Fred Dibnah talking about his rebuild of that Welsh Steam Engine. The crankshaft was in a very sorry state so he said he got the engine rotating (via the steam roller probably) and spent the afternoon wandering up and down the shaft with an angle grinder. After a good polish you couldn't really tell the difference between that a turned finish.

Makes a mounted wheel (flap or otherwise) look positively sophisticated.

regards Martin

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 08:25:32:

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 00:59:09:

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

I was being deadly serious.

.

Being unable to edit out the vote of thanks from my previous post, I will add nothing.

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 08:25:32:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 03/09/2015 07:03:49:

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 00:59:09:

Is it only me or does anyone else use an angle grinder with a flap wheel on spinning parts in the lathe ?

,

THANK YOU … Mr John [Socrates] Stevenson

A nudge towards sanity, by reductio ad absudum

MichaelG.

.

I was being deadly serious.

It's like using emery cloth on the lathe to finish off to a nice smooth finish, lots of us do it but no-one will admit to it [don't know why, it's good for chasing that odd 1/10th of a thou .]

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

I'll admit it. – Gladly.

In a week I do absolutely shed loads of bearing fits on shafts and housing. I should think a very latge part of my work is bearing fits and they all get turned to with 0.05mm and then polished to size.

If not the the first time a bearing is pushed on or into the shaft / housing all it does is compress the tiny turning grooves and you are then undersize.

There is a vast difference between text book / welded to the armchair / and earning a continuous crust doing it.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Stevenson on 03/09/2015 21:33:26:

There is a vast difference … earning a continuous crust doing it.

.

Understood, John

'though I remain uncomfortable with the way this thread has progressed.

[and, this morning, I honestly thought that you felt the same way]

… It did, after all, start with an innocent enquiry about why a lathe would be reversed!

MichaelG.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Re

"It's like using emery cloth on the lathe to finish off to a nice smooth finish, lots of us do it but no-one will admit to it [don't know why, it's good for chasing that odd 1/10th of a thou .]"

and

"In a week I do absolutely shed loads of bearing fits on shafts and housing. I should think a very latge part of my work is bearing fits and they all get turned to with 0.05mm and then polished to size.

If not the the first time a bearing is pushed on or into the shaft / housing all it does is compress the tiny turning grooves and you are then undersize."

Short of using a non-existant cylindrical grinder which would be production practice for bearing fits are we not compelled to use semi-mechanical (emery cloth in the lathe) or hand fitting methods (scraping and papering) to achieve exactly the same ends.?

regards Martin

[Author]

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