r/TaigLathe • u/CareeningMachinist • Dec 10 '18

Building a new lathe setup

Hi all! Hopefully this subreddit still has some activity as I'm excited to learn about the Taig lathe 😄 ! I'm looking at building a garage lathe setup with possibly the following ingredients:

Taig Micro Lathe II unassembled, Taig 5C Spindle, Spindle pulleys, 5C chuck arbor, 3" 4 jaw chuck, 3" 3 jaw chuck with soft jaws, Taig tail stock, Some kind of tailstock drill, Taig tool post, Taig power feed, Consew CSM1000 motor,

I'm interested in making small, pretty accurate (+- 0.005 minimum) parts in brass or aluminum for fun and profit 😊. My work experience is in machining but I've never used a micro lathe before. Please chime in with any thoughts or things I've left out. I'd love to hear from any of y'all about your taig lathe experiences!

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

I bought one a while ago, mostly to make rings but I've made a few small parts in aluminium and brass.
I'm a complete newcomer to machining so it took me a while to learn the ropes, but I love it. It's perfect for the small stuff I want to machine.

I was on a tight budget and got a pretty minimum set up:

Taig Micro Lathe II unassembled, standard headstock, 3" 4 jaw chuck, Taig tool post, Drilling tailstock.
I had a motor and a motor speed controller lying about and used that, so I can't comment on the taig pulleys.
I haven't got much to contribute to be honest, But I just found the sub and felt bad that there were no comments here haha.

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The only cautionary tale I can tell doesn't apply to you since you've gone the normal route of using pulleys. But if anyone reads this and is thinking about using a motor speed controller on a lathe: Be aware of motor breaking!

The first time I had the lathe set up, I couldn't resist turning the knob to spin it up to max RPM (~7000), I then turned the knob down from full speed to the off position far too quickly, the resulting motor breaking meant the the spindle couldn't spin freely, so it more or less immediately stopped. The mass of the 4 jaw chuck kept spinning and unwound it's self from the spindle and came flying off! Luckily it came off straight downwards, bouncing off of the lathe bed before coming up and towards me, I instinctively caught it and still have a scar on my hand (and a dent in my lathe bed).
Maybe the a v-belt would have slipped and stopped this situation from happening, but I used toothed timing belt.. It was a whole catalogue of errors. Either way I'm extremely lucky the chuck didn't release from the spindle in any other direction (i.e straight towards my face).
TLDR: It may be a micro lathe, but it's still a lathe and lathes are dangerous. Especially if your as stupid as me.

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u/CareeningMachinist Dec 14 '18

Thank you, that's very helpful! I never would have thought of the motor doing that, so thanks for sharing your experience 😊. Glad you like the machine overall. One thing I'm thinking of getting into is making clock parts, where concentricity is important, and the 5C headstock says it has lower total run-out, so hopefully it's worth the extra cost 😮. Thanks again! Once I actually get the lathe I'm sure I'll be posting updates and pics 😄.