what to do when no lathe????

[bimmer1980]

here's unique way of turning a shaft down with out a lathe. My brother was working on a little project and needed to turn a shaft down about .015 to .020". we don't have a lathe.....yet. the shaft was from an arctic cat sled.... So here is what we did... Used the bearing block from the sled's gear box and another bear pillow block on the other end. Then a bolt was threaded into the end and an airdrill was used to spin the shaft. A file was then run across the shaft until the pulley would fit. It worked surprisingly well!!

I can't vouch for using proper machining methods.... the poor file.... but it worked and was realitively easy to do.....

Get 'r' Done!!!!!

p.s. that's my bro in the blue shirt and I'm in the white shirt....

 

[slicktoptt]

Nice ingenuity there.

 

[A_Pmech]

Hey, it worked...

 

[StumpXJ]

I have done some similar stuff in a drill press with shorter shafts... works if you only have to remove a little. We call that cornfield engineering where I am from... hey, if it works! Then I bought a mill and lathe, life is much easier now.

~James

 

[snorky18]

I've done some smaller stuff in a similar manner, chuck it into drill, put drill in vise, lock trigger on, and go to town. Works quite well as long as you don't need NASA precision. Your method looks a little more accurate though since both ends are supported.

 

[bochnak]

Must have taken a while to remove that much material with a file!!!

 

[-B-]

Vertical lathes and hand held lathes are major parts of my current machine shop and usually part of my work site shop, add in a grinder and bam-o you can do just about anything.

 

[bimmer1980]

I was surpised at how quickly material was removed. I would say that in less than 15 minute we had the majority of the material off.....

We thought about chucking it into the drill press or the MSC mill, but we didn't have a large enough check or collet.....

 

[stewart]

Nice work, and I'll bet you even got it within a few thousandths.

I have said that the day I got my lathe some of best my creativity was lost! However, having the lathe did open new avenues.

 

[Torque1st]

This method is easy to use and I have used it many times. It is OK for removing small amounts of material but it can cause out-of-round (T.I.R.) problems. That problem increases with the amount of material removed.