We started this insert tooling journey for the lathe by buying the cheap and ubiquitous triangle insert 5-tool holder set from ENCO. They usually sell these sets for around $20 and inserts go for around $4. These work OK for the mini-lathe and even up to the 12x, but we wanted something with a chipbreaker, a smaller cutting radius and reliefs that would better suit the smaller machines. After a call to J&L Metalworking, one of the techs recommended the SCLCR holder (from Hertel) and accompanying 21.51 inserts. Although this is an insert with four usable cutting edges, two of them are at 80 degrees and the other two are at 100 degrees. This means that in order to get all four cutting edges used, we would need two separate holders. They, unfortunately could not source the toolholder that utilizes the oblique-angle edges. Thus, we plugged along until just recently and on a whim, we checked eBay. Luckily for us, there happened to be an insert holder made by the “MICRO 100” company that used these other edges for the 21.51 inserts. Great! $25 and a few days later, the toolholder arrived:
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You would think this is simple enough…
Temperature control and rinsing, rinsing, rinsing between tanks is important as is making sure your parts don’t ding around your bucket and knick and scratch other parts. And of course, solid and secure electrical contact is key to a nice anodize.
How do we know? We’ll show you some parts below.
Now, we sometimes just make silly mistakes. One example would be when we left the parts in the anodize tank for over one hour (not the problem) with the leads reversed! (BIG problem!)
This is what a part looks like after we neglected to pay attention to the lead reversal and then continued to send it into the dye tank:
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It seemed easy enough…
We purchased the full LCD anodizing kit from Caswell after hearing good things about their kits. We chose them since they sold a complete package and didn’t want to try to get all the pieces together from scratch. It seemed like a good idea at the time. After waiting three weeks for the power supply, it arrived (a nice unit, btw). We were disappointed it took so long to ship without updates but can certainly understand backorder issues.
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Tumbling aluminum can be a somewhat daunting task when first attempted. After machining your part, you want to keep it nice and shiny but also want to debur the part evenly.
We have tried a few types of tumbling media that claim to polish and debur but have found these (the ceramic and composite style triangles, cylinders, and the combination of those) to be really good at deburring but not very good at polishing. Typically (even when a burnishing fluid is used and the media strictly contains no abrasives) the finish gets dulled, after which point, getting that polish back is near impossible without human intervention.
While we do not claim to be experts in this area of finishing, we’d like to claim that there’s been sufficient empirical experimentation to warrant a few conclusions:
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We keep putting off buying a DRO setup for the Grizzly 12“x36” lathe (G4003), but every once in a blue moon we’ll need to turn parts with a repeatable diameter and counting dial marks simply takes too long.
Turns out that there’s an even simpler way of mounting a dial indicator than those “Mag Dial” magnets for the X-axis. Simply use a length of bar and mount one end on the carriage where the moving/traveling/follower rest is mounted and the other end to the back of the dial indicator with the point touching a part of the toolpost or other component that makes sense in your configuration.
This takes a few minutes to find scrap and drill two holes. Easy! It’s nice to work with larger machines because you can find more space to mount various tools to help your jobs go faster and easier.
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And here’s the result:
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After going through the collet closer vs. 5C collet chuck question, we cut a 3” diameter aluminum blank (we debated on using steel, but thought that having less spinning mass may be advantageous) and chucked it in the G4003.
A few key things to remember about metric threading on this lathe as well as the peculiar non-standard thread of the outboard spindle tube. We knew that the pitch was 1.5mm, but the diameter seemed to range between 40mm and 45mm based on first measurements. We’ll keep the suspense to a minimum. It’s a 42mm x 1.5mm thread on our 12×36 Grizzly-branded G4003. This of course may vary with yours. Who knows, it appears that some things just aren’t standard with Chinese machines and tooling.
Here’s the thread mic’d with the caliper.
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We needed to have a quick, self-centering, fixturing system for a final operation of small, round parts that are made via our HF 8×12 CNC lathe. While there are some commercial fixtures such as the Yuasa 5C collet block fixture (5C Multiple Collet Chuck Block Yuasa #640-404) which accommodates 4 5-C collets, it’s also quite pricey at somewhere between $1,600 and $2,000. What’s nice about the system (aside from being able to buy and use out of the box) is that it’s squared up and made of meehanite cast iron. It’s a solid fixture:
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The 12×36 is a great medium-sized lathe for the home shop. It’s a lathe that can be mounted on a rolling stand or fixed in place. Either way, its size and price make it easy for the home shop machinist to consider when upgrading from the 7×12, 8×12, 9×20 and other smaller lathes.
While the lathe is not quite suitable for production work (not like a Hardinge turret lathe or similar 2nd op lathe), it has the range that to do small, large and long work.
Did you know that the 12×36 (for example, the Grizzly G4002 and G4003 lathe) has a collet closer that’s sold by Grizzly? That’s right, it’s the G4026 sold for $299.95. That’s a pretty decent price indeed. There is, however, one slight problem with the system. It mounts using the existing studs which means that the lever itself is oriented vertically instead of outward towards the operator. Awkard!
Here’s the collet closer from Grizzly. We’ve read reports about fitment issues, but it looks pretty solid.
In our quest to solve the collet closer issue, we realized that until an actual collet closer system was put into place, we could simply use the stock chuck but would need a decent depth-stop of sorts.
Something that mounts to the outboard end of the spindle tube?
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We’ve already CNC’d our 8x a while back and have been putting it to decent use. Even after we upgraded the X-axis leadscrew with a 5/8-8 TPI with brass leadnut (not split), we wanted better resolution and backlash control (there’s not a lot of space underneath the cross slide as you can imagine).
So, we retrieved the eBay ballscrew purchase from the parts drawer and commenced the upgrade. It’s a Kuroda C3 class ballscrew with little detectable backlash. Well, it has to be better than what we already had…
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