It's not terribly difficult if you have some machining knowledge and the right tools.Wondering about this as I have been thinking about getting a lathe in the next year or so for playing & maybe some Form 1 toys.
Trying to figure out if I would be better off just having barrels threaded or doing it myself.
It's not terribly difficult if you have some machining knowledge and the right tools.
Most barrels have some concentricity differences from bore to OD. I like to zero each one to the bore before I start. Not all lathe chucks give the option to move them independently. Some lathes will have a 3-jaw chuck and they move all together, which will make it tougher to zero.
If your not very familiar with machining, speeds and feeds and proper tooling , you can mess a barrel up in no time. Practice, practice and more practice on scrap metals until you have confidence.
I call BS .....a talented machinist can competently thread under several different set ups. Between centers is good, but that long skinny barrel sticking out with no support is a disaster waiting to happenYou absolutely have to do it on centers if it's for a suppressor and that either means a nice chuck (and spider) or using a dog and live center which is how I like to do it if the barrel is short enough. It took me years of learning before I felt comfortable chucking a barrel up and threading. Of course back then, factory threaded barrels weren't really a thing like they are today.
I call BS .....a talented machinist can competently thread under several different set ups. Between centers is good, but that long skinny barrel sticking out with no support is a disaster waiting to happen
I'm not picking on anyone here.
I will say that I can do a lot of things in my shop. but, its all good until one blows out a baffle stack on a $1,400 dollar can. I just pay the guys that do that stuff for a living. I'm a fabricator and a tig guy.
I tend to stay within my knowledge and limitations.
Yeah, I would love a decent lathe to mess with and by the time I figure out how to do something I would probable be on a walker in an assisted living home! LOLLet me start by saying I am a professional machinist. I might know a little something about lathe work.
Your gonna spend 5k to ?? An a good machine tooled up. Then you need to spend the next several years spending hours in the shop doing projects to get yourself familiar with your lathe. Along the way you will scrap jobs, screw up projects, fave a few wrecks, and after 5 plus years you will just start to get a han7on what your doing. After 34 years I'm still learning, I still scrap jobs.
I am not trying to discourage you, but I want you to understand, buying a harbor freight lathe and a $4.99 set of tool bits is not the way to go. Come spend a few weekends in my shop, I will get ys running a lathe......
If you were closer I would teach you all I knowYeah, I would love a decent lathe to mess with and by the time I figure out how to do something I would probable be on a walker in an assisted living home! LOL
If your telling the truth, you not well versed in machine work. And I for 1 would run as fast as I could away from your show. Yes the man makes the machine, not the machine makes the Machinist, but you need quality machines.....a smithy or a South bend.....I will take the south bendThreading is usually about $100. Cut and thread runs more, of course. I do my work on a Smithy 1224XL. I center with a 4-jaw on the barrel as far through the headstock as I can get it, then use the live center in the muzzle. I've never had a complaint about alignment. I'm a retired Quality Engineer with a background in machining for aerospace and military. I've been running machines since the late 1960's. I still make models to work on before I turn some guns. Better to mess up $2 worth of scrap than a $2000 shotgun. Oh, and I use the harbor freight lathe for the really little stuff that the big one can't hold right.