Novice needs help narrowing down lathe for metal work

[rick99]

Hi,

I am as novice as novice can be, I am working on a new project and am hoping to get some guidance to start me in the right direction.

I'm helping a friend expand his business and part of that expansion will require him to produce a part he needs.

He needs to lathe a stainless round puck shaped flat approximately 2" wide x 3/4 inches thick. The part requires a 3/8" deep threaded bore on one side.

Right now he gets these parts from China but it is notoriously unreliable and very difficult to project how many he needs. Shipping takes over a month so it is even more difficult to coordinate.

We have done the estimates for purchasing the Stainless 2" rods in 6' lengths and the price per unit is well within reason.

The labor would not be a problem because he is going to send his son to take a lathe course, and he would operate the lathe to lathe enough inventory for a months supply.

Obviously the feasibility now lies with the capital cost of the lathe.

Could someone give me some examples of what we are looking at in order to carry out this sort of work?

We are very flexible people who pick up new skills fast and will do what is necessary to get us by. Our hope is that as we grow, we would then hire a lathe operator and expand operations into other production.

Any help would be IMMENSELY appreciated!

Thanks

Rick

[aametalmaster]

Well you could buy a chinese 9x20 lathe new for under a grand, or look for a used SB, Logan, Atlas and get American iron prob for a little less but you will need some tooling for either model. That would be real simple in my basement and i could take some pics and show you how i would do it. The hardest part would be cutting the SS bar stock into the pucks. A good saw if going to far out weigh the lathe price...Bob

[rick99]

Thanks guys your giving me some hope for this project, because while there is a will there's a way...I was clueless where to start!

I figured I would need something to cut the "pucks" from the stainless rod, but I have been trying to find a video to see how they are fastened and how the lathing works exactly.

The "puck" needs some tapering on one side, kind of coming up like a cone. On the top of the cone, it would then be flat and I would then have to have a threaded hole approximately 3/8" wide and 1/2" deep.

If you all know of some youtube video or anything at all showing a similar process so I can get a better handle on this I would appreciate it.

Also, just to get an idea of time, could you tell me what would be reasonable to estimate how long it would take to produce such a part for the lathing process, so we can figure out the logistics?

Thanks again

Rick

[aametalmaster]

You can email me a crude drawing and i could make it and show you exactly how to do it, except mine would be from steel. I got you up to the tapering part. So its about the size of a snuff can with a threaded hole in the side and the edge is tapered?...Bob aametalmaster@yahoo.com