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Using a Bridgeport as a lathe.

4K views 11 replies 6 participants last post by  st3gamefarm 
#1 ·
I turned some small parts on my BP today. I know it's not ideal and there's no steady rest for long parts but you can use your mill as a lathe. I thought there may be a few folks out there who'd like to see it done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duBbP7KgGBE

Kevin
 
#5 ·
Hi neighbor I am just a few miles north of you and for a couple of years I did just the opposite, I used my lathe for a mill! I bought a 14x40 lathe at the local HF when they still sold such things a little over 4 years ago and until I bought my BP clone I simply made a milling attachment for the lathe and it worked fine for a couple of years, like someone else said sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do and if works for you then great!


Ericnova, have you considered a milling attachment for that lathe? What size lathe do you have? You might be surprised what you can do with a good milling attachment and a collet holder in the spindle for tooling, I built a complete Winchester style single shot rifle totally from scratch using just my lathe and the milling attachment. I have also built a lot of the small pieces for 65 Mustang rack&pinion steering with the same setup.
 
#6 ·
Ericnova, have you considered a milling attachment for that lathe? What size lathe do you have? You might be surprised what you can do with a good milling attachment and a collet holder in the spindle for tooling, I built a complete Winchester style single shot rifle totally from scratch using just my lathe and the milling attachment. I have also built a lot of the small pieces for 65 Mustang rack&pinion steering with the same setup.
It's a big old Pratt & Whitney WWII-era beast, 18" and 12" chucks, 8 foot bed, but will only swing 15" over the cross slide.

Used to be a bigger issue, but now I've got a Grizzly mill for what hotrod mill work I do.
 
#12 ·
You would be surprized at what you can do with tools from the turn of the century. The best shop I worked at, had a drill press, a lathe with 20" swing, and 12' bed, with steadyrest, and a shaper. All driven with flat belts from overhead shafts, and a single 10hp electric motor. We made and repaired all kinds of stuff with that equipement.
My favorite was the lathe. To be so old, it was as true as any modern lathe out there. And while it looked complicated, was quite simple. I could set it up to cut a tapered shaft, quicker than I could set up a newer LeBlond with a taper attachment. And I had to cut and thread a lot of tapered shafts. Then I hadda cut a keyway. That's where the shaper came in. Just chuck up the shaft at the proper angle, set the shaper to cut a certian amount per pass, and set the total depth, and let it run, when it reached the specified depth, it would stop cutting. voila a perfect keyway in a Ford axle.
 
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