SpudFiles

I have always had a fascination of making my own stuff with machinery and i was looking around to see how much a mini lathe and everything would cost. I was looking at ebay and found this odd piece of equipment and i have never seen it before. Have any of you recognize this thing and would it be a good machine to have for the price? If it turns out to be good, looks like a good addition to the shop.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MINI-MULTIPURPOSE-L ... dZViewItem

That thing looks awesome to me!
The only thing holding me back is the ability to lathe no more then 20mm (metal) and 45mm (wood).
If I ever buy a lathe I want to machine alluminium pistons 50mm+ with it.

I don't know why you'd want an aluminium piston anyway. It'll always be of greater mass than a plastic one.

If you've got a valve design which is like Solars (two disks and a rod) then metal has more attractions but for pistons which are basically cylinders you shouldn't kid yourself you need a metal slug in there.

45mm is plenty for smaller bored cannons, I'd not believe any lathe that fits together like lego would have especially high precision but probably good enough for anything I'd make

If it was around here for the equivalent price of £150 I'd get one. I'm currently looking at the costs of getting some valve bits machined and it'd be rather more than that.

Well Damn, i just found out it can only be shipped to Australia... Damn...

Hotwired wrote:I don't know why you'd want an aluminium piston anyway. It'll always be of greater mass than a plastic one.

If you've got a valve design which is like Solars (two disks and a rod) then metal has more attractions but for pistons which are basically cylinders you shouldn't kid yourself you need a metal slug in there.

Ofcourse the piston would not be solid, but drilled out as much as possible.
Also, alluminium is stronger and wont break as easily on extreme pressures.
A piston slamming back and forth in a 35bar automatic gun (one of my possible future plans, being about 1 or 2 years probably) needs to be constructed out of a very strong material right?

Of course, I'd use something like nylon or UHMWPE but thats just me.

Oh, and also, besides machining pistons, you might also machine projectiles!
And then you will want to machine steel dont you?