I've had my Levin 8mm lathe for some time. It's one of Levin's first lathes, made for a Government contract. It sat many many years, and I scored it on Ebay. Normally they go for money that's insane, but because this lathe came standard painted, it's not as darling as the plated ones....but it's still as accurate...so for me it's a win!
I've slowly acquired collets and arbors, a watchmakers faceplate, a motor, speed control and a bench to put it on.
Now the fun begins! The remainder of the "attachments" for for stupid money when they do come up. I want to do small work with this lathe...real small work, so I'm getting what I can and making the rest.
Tool post
I purchased a Cowells lathe QCTP under the advise of Bill, and that was a great purchase. It needed to be shimmed up, but it work well and repeats
Next, I purchased a USB camera. It's been on the shelf for over a year, but I have time now so I got it up and mounted, and in addition, I can lay something on the bench and zoom in on it as well. It's really nice to document what I'm doing too as it will dump to my droid.
Next was a micro drilling spindle that I copied from a jerry Kieffer article on the NAWCC web site. I must admit, it works exactly as described, and thus far 0.2 mm drills are no problem....I'm going to test a 0.1 shortly!
Next, I wanted the Levin Heavy duty faceplate, with an array of tapped holes on the face. Good luck finding one....so I got some stock out, and a 8mm arbor, and made my own.
That's as far as I've gotten with this, the next thing on the list is a steady rest....I'm drawing up now....the picture below is of the genuine article, but I'll fabricate from bar stock and scrape the base to the bed. Same design though.
I also machined up some hardened centers....1 male and 1 female, as well as making a Levin Tailstock taper D bit reamer...for the future. I have a picture below of a Levin center next to a MT3 center
The next micro machining challenge will be a bushing with a 0.004" bore, 0.008 OD and 1mm long....in 0-1 tool steel.....that's a goal....If I can do that, it'll do what I want it to do.
Dave
