Tyler was right...lathes are awesome!

I needed a new axle to mate up a Ceriani front end with a mystery spool hub for my Triumph land speed bike, and instead of having to find a machine shop and give them my scribbled measuremnts on a post-it, I went back in the shop and fired the lathe up. After a ten minute crash course from Tyler (most of which had to do with cleaning up after myself) I went to it. I would say it turned out very well for my first time machining anything on a lathe before.

Of course it took me 8 hours and 2.5 feet of chromoly steel to make a ten inch axle....but the third try was the charm, perfect fit. Now just need to drill and thread the ends for the castle nuts and cut a couple spacers and it's good to go. I have a feeling the rear axle will go much quicker!
Oh yeah....got my Bonneville racing number too. I am excited as hell! Cheers, Kyle

Sometimes the small things are the most fun

Had a couple hours today and made a spacer today for my rear wheel, for between the hub and the brake drum. I have something to get off my chest... I am in love with both step bits (unibits) as well as my lathe. Step bits are just awesome time savers and also are great for center drilling on the lathe. The lathe is great because a hand shaped and filed spacer would never look so good. There is so much you can do with a lathe that there is no good way to do otherwise. Like make aluminum bangle bracelets for your wife. I can't wait for tomorrow.

Tyler

New Shop Equipment.. Old Atlas Craftsman Lathe

I picked up this 1950-something Craftsman lathe yesterday. Made by Atlas in the USA. Real nice, it was in storage for a long time and it came with several boxes and such of tooling, attachments, and lots of calipers, bore gauges, dial indicators etc. Most of that I don't know how to use, but it sure will be fun to learn. I like the fact that I bought this big, American made lathe for a fraction of what I would paid for a new import one. This one is probably more accurate anyway.

Tyler