By Perry Harrington This is a trick I came up with out of necessity. I was trying to die-thread a keyed shaft with 5/8-18 threads. I don't have a tailstock die holder, but I had a bolt with 5/8-18 threads on it. I took the bolt, cut the head off, and gripped the shouldered portion [...]

By Donovan V. Browne When I first acquired my second-hand Myford ML7 lathe - complete with sturdy wooden bench, three- and four-jaw chucks, and several faceplates (and lots of other nice tooling) - I suddenly became acutely aware that it had been more than 40 years since I had the opportunity of cutting a thread. [...]

By R. Joseph Ransil I have a Palmgren rotary table mounted on my drill press. It's a nice piece of equipment, and I use it frequently. To maintain precise operation, I keep the gibs fairly snug. This is fine, except that when you want to move the table a good distance (a frequent occurrence) it's [...]

By George Kolar For a machine that requires a flow of coolant, the use of a discarded home oil burner pump makes an ideal solution. The pump itself is about the size of an average orange, can be driven by a 1/12 hp motor, has a limited capacity for suction, and will deliver fluid at [...]

Steady Rest Accuracy by Jack Johns I was asked to re-machine the centers, in both ends, of four 4" diameter x 50" long hardened rolls. The ends were plugged and soft, so they could be machined. The tolerance was .0002" TIR on a dead center. I set up a roll in the usual way, using [...]

Taper Cutting Checks and Setup From Machinist's Workshop This simple method for checking and setting up for cutting a taper on your lathe works equally well, whether using the compound or a taper attachment. In order to achieve the best accuracy, the workpiece must be smooth and in line with the lathe axis. If it [...]