[EricH]

Originally Posted by dfukuba

It was probably because of the tooling that we have at the school...I'm thinking about buying a set of my own cutters. anyone have any good places online to order lathe cutters??

Also, facing off that angle in the cavity seems to be the one thing i'm not sure how to do, any advice?

You can make your own lathe cutter with a grinding wheel and a whetstone. You just need some tool steel (3/8" square by 6" is a decent size).

Now, facing the angle is pretty simple IF you have a compound tool holder (I forget the exact name, but it rotates and extends the block that holds the tool). Here's how: Set the rest's lowest rotation to the required angle. There should be a ring showing the degrees. Line up the cutter so that it will cut the whole depth. (You'll also need the right cutter... Right handed and left handed are different and cut differently.) Mark what you want to cut between. Then, you position the slide so that the tool is where it needs to be. Once you start, you only use the long travel to go a little bit at a time. You use the travel on the rest to move the tool across the part.

The tricky part is that this is on the inside, so access and depth determination will be harder. You'll need to stop more often to check depth.