Lathes and Mills

[MrForbes]

Lathe first, definitely.

Assuming you have a decent drill press already.

[dlavery]

Lathe first. Period. A lathe is THE fundamental machine tool. With a good lathe, a good machinist can build every other machine tool, including a mill. With a reasonable milling attachment, a lathe can do pretty much every operation a mill will do. The inverse is not true for a mill.

-dave



.

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Lathe first. Period. A lathe is THE fundamental machine tool. With a good lathe, a good machinist can build every other machine tool, including a mill. With a reasonable milling attachment, a lathe can do pretty much every operation a mill will do. The inverse is not true for a mill.

-dave

That means a lathe is just like a Dremel! I never thought about it that way.

But seriously, that's surprisingly true when you think about it. A lathe is just a mill sideways once you add the vise to it. (Or is a mill a sideways lathe that's missing parts?) There is such wisdom among our mentors.

[sanddrag]

On 968, they got a mill first, and I'll tell you we really could have used a lathe too. I remember actually turning axles and the sort on the mill. It was a bit of a cobbled-together setup but it worked surprisingly well. I had the axle in a collet in the mill spindle and a lathe tool in the mill vise, and used the table axis feed to face, and the quill to turn down the diameter longitudinally. It was a vertical lathe of sorts. It seemed rather magical to those unfamiliar with such a "it's the middle of Sunday night and I need this done" technique.

I learned to use a lathe before I learned to use a mill, and at home I bought a lathe before I bought a mill. I would say definitely go with the lathe first. You can make a lot of non-round parts by other means (sawing and drilling for example) but for round parts like hubs or axles the lathe is really the only way to go. You need one.

Now, I see a little bit of Chinese machine bashing going on in this thread. They aren't all bad. I've been quite happy with my little 8x14 chinese lathe at home for the past 5 years. It's a decent quality unit. We just picked up a 1961 Logan 11x24 for 696 and while it was all there, quite honestly it was a neglected disaster upon receipt. I had to disassemble it and completely rebuild it. It's still not back together yet so I can't comment on how good it will be.

Unfortunately, a lot of times schools give no regard to used equipment and are always looking to buy new.

Used is fine if it's in good shape and not worn out or missing parts. You want to consider this: Will you use the machine to do projects or will the machine itself be the project? Right now with the old Logan I picked up, it's the latter. But at a price of $0 I can't complain.

[MrForbes]

In the shop we built the FRC robots in from 2006-2010, we had a mill and lathe, and used the lathe quite a bit, the mill only a few times.

At home I have an old lathe I got 15 years ago, and a not quite so old mill that I got one year ago. I bought them for reasonable prices, but did spend a fair bit of time getting them fixed up. The lathe gets more use than the mill, and the mill seems to get more use as a drill press, than as a mill.

Unfortunately, today it's hard to find quality new machines for a reasonable price.

You might find that you design your robots around the equipment you have...

[Retired Starman]

Mill first, then a rotary table for the mill (after a good vise). You will be able to do a lot of round parts on the rotary table. Nothing long, but things like wheels, hubs, plugs, etc. Later, after getting good tooling for the mill, go for a good used lathe. Old Atlas lathes are OK if the head bearing is good. I have a nice 10 in. Rockwell lathe with ball bearings in the head. I love it. Spring for one of the wedge-type quick change tool holders. They are much easier to set up and change than any other tool holder.

Dr. Bob

[DonRotolo]

Lathe first, as Dave mentioned.

We have a lathe but not a mill. We just design things that don't need to be milled., but it is hard to design things that aren't round...

[AdamHeard]

For how we build, I would say lathe first.

We actively seek out machine shop sponsors, especially 2d (laser, waterjet, etc...).

Effective use of COTS parts + 2d parts + lathe is great.

We love our mill, and use it a lot, but we could survive without it easier than without our lathes.

The most important thing is that you tailor your design style to exactly match the resources you have available.

[unclewaldo]

FWIT..
if you can not buy the cow, then maybe you can rent it.. or at least have access to it until you can afford it. Greatly overlooked resources for manufacturing are COMMUNITY COLLEGES or TECHNICAL SCHOOLS in your area.

Teams in the Los Angeles South Bay area [207, 294, 330, 597, 687, 911, 973, 2150, 2637... I see a couple World Champs listed there...] have utilized El Camino College and its Machine Tool Tech program to gain access to both conventional and CNC equipment [mills, lathes, panel routers, EDM machines, grinders... etc.]. Yes, high school kids [and mentors] can enroll in these colleges and have access to their resources. As your team grows and can afford good/ better equipment/machinery, you can rely less and less on the college resources.

[Dick Linn]

If you can hook up with a local community college or tech school, it's a great way to go.