Mini-Lathe Beginners

Things to buy to get you started for metalwork, lathe and milling

Things to buy

There is a list of things you have to have for this hobby. Let me qualify that a bit. Part of the fun of this hobby stems from not having an unlimited budget, and one of everything in the tooling catalogue. You get to think about jobs and devise ways around the shortcomings of your workshop.

More about that elsewhere, but, I think there is a list of things that it is madness to try and do without. Often, something is so cheap, like 40p for a centre drill, that it is stupid to NOT go and buy them, unless you are on an extremely tight budget.

• Lathe tailstock chuck. 13mm. Can't really do without this, fairly cheap.
• Vernier calipers for measuring stuff.
• Dial indicator, for, urm, indicating stuff.
• Centre drills. Cheap ones are dead cheap and do the job.
• Set of drills 1mm to 13mm in 0.5mm steps.
• Additional drill bits for 4.2mm, 3.3mm etc for tapping holes
• M3, M4, M5, M6, M8 taps. I never use dies.
• A catering sized tin of WD40
• A decent boring bar (glanze etc). Bit of a luxury, but get one anyway.
• A decent parting tool.
• Transfer punches
• Tools steel blanks and a bench grinder.
• Internal and external threading tools. Don't try grinding them yourself at this stage. Too Hard!
• For the micromill: A couple of engineering parallels, and a decent vice. In fact, let me stess that point. Buy the most expensive milling vice you can afford. My inch jobby cost me about 60 quid.
• For the milling you'll also need a 10mm and 6mm collets and end mills to do anything useful.
• Don't muck about, go and buy a 6x4 bandsaw.

Beyond that list, be careful. You'll often find yourself buying tools as and when you need them. Boring heads, rotary tables, the list is endless!!