I have had a good education on using a lathe from none other than Toby Lavender when I was helping in his shop, but I am looking at getting one and would like to get a good book that will give a good start. Any advice would be appeciated.
That's exactly what I tried to do. I signed up for the tech schools evening class. Throughly enjoyed the first couple weeks, then the instructor had personal issues come up and had to stop teaching evening classes. No biggie, I thought surely they'll find another, nope. No luck as such. I got refunded and enrolled for the next class, well they found a teacher, but not enough interest to hold a class. They have to have a minium of 6 students to break even. :mad3: Well crap, I'm out again for now, due to only being able to take evening classes with my work schedule.....Ive been down the path you are on. If you have a local community college with a machine shop program it would be money well spent to take a semester of two there. I did just that and there is no way I would have learned everything I did on my own.
GREAT info. Just what I've been looking for. Thanks a lot for the links... and keep 'em coming, please! :smokin:here are a couple of decent on-line primers on mill and lathe operations:
http://www.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_use_a_lathe.htm
http://www.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_use_a_milling_machine.htm
enough to get you started.
US Army Fundamentals of Machine Tools.pdf is 7Mb, 300 pages, 1996
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/F3Y/4ZH1/22PEP282ORF/F3Y4ZH122PEP282ORF.pdf
US Navy Machinery Repairman Handbook.pdf is 15Mb, 430 pages, 1993
http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FJR/1XC1/HK7EP282OTX/FJR1XC1HK7EP282OTX.pdf