At 05:12 PM 3/23/98 -0500, Gerald Brazil wrote:
>As for a lathe for the amateur car restorer, forget it. (even though I have
>one and consider myself a pretty fair amateur machinist) It is far cheaper,
>far faster and probably far safer to have a professional machinist do
>anything that needs to be done.
Got to disagree on this one - we have a small metal lathe that has been
used to make many parts for the car. Steve is an Electrical Engineer
(though damn talented when it comes to mechanical stuff) by trade,
and he bought this one in parts (actually the fellow he bought it from
said there were enough parts to make 2 lathes in the box - which came
without assembly instructions of any kind and no 2 pcs were together).
It might take him longer to DIY the parts, but it's worked out very well.
Our race car is Italian, with lots of custom-Italian sized bits and pcs -
although we have sent one or two parts out to machine shops, most
everything else has been made here on the lathe and/or one of the 3
welders. In fact, there was an older Bridgeport mill in the paper a few
weekends ago for $1200, and if
a) we had anything that could move it or
b) any room left AT ALL in the garage, we'd have a mill
Maureen Soar
Oregon Region SCCA Solo II DP 15 Fiat X1/9
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