Scratch Building a Micro Lathe

I wanted a small lathe to do model work and I've always enjoyed metal working since high school. So I thought why not build one. There are plenty of small lathes on the market, but if your into metal working, why not build one. I looked at the Gingery lathe and foundry but didn't want to go through foundry work, although I have built the foundry and melted some aluminum. After browsing through the numerous metal working books and magazines I decided to follow how Unimat had done it. I got some ideas out of the book The Shop Wisdom of Rudy Kouhoupt. I was able to glean some dimensions from some of the equipment he had built for his Unimat. So off I went and gathered some material to start the project. As I do the numerous parts I draw them up on cad. So hopefully there will be full cad drawings available at the end of this project. Below is a picture of the parts that have been done so far. I've started this project several years ago and it might be several more before this get's done.

Update Note:    I have since acquired a Sherline lathe/mill setup, but will continue with this project as time will allow.

NOTE: Sept. 28, 2008. I'm going to leave this page for now. It may give you an idea as far as machining goes. I am not going to continue on this project since the Sherline lathe does everything I need for minuature machining.

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	The scale next to the "C" channel will give you some idea of how small this lathe is. The two aluminum blocks are the support blocks for the stainless steel way bars. The larger on the left is for the head stock. The smaller one on the right just holds the way bars.
	Here are the way bars. They are made from 1/2" dia. stainless steel. The two aluminum pieces will be mounted to the channel. After that a pair of slots will be milled in the aluminum to receive the way bars.
	This will give some idea of how the base will look with the bars setting on top of the aluminum blocks. They still need to be mounted and have the slots milled into them.
	The slots have been milled, the holes drilled in the way bars and screwed to the aluminum blocks from underneath. The oil lite bushings have also been added. These will get secured with a sort of pillow block to the bottom of the carriage.
	The carriage is machined from a solid block of aluminum. The top will have holes drilled to support the cross slide. The bottom has the notches milled to hold the way bushings.
	Bottom view of the carriage with the milled slots that will hold the way bushing pillow blocks and the clearance slot for way bars.
	This shows approximately how the carriage will fit onto the way bars. The pillow blocks have not been made yet.
	This view shows the carriage setting on the oil bushings, still no pillow blocks.
	This picture, although out of focus, sorry about that but am using a web cam right now, gives a comparison between the Sherline lathe and the mini lathe.

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