Customer Reviews

The Metal Lathe (Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One reviewer knocked this book for lack of color photos, "very" home-made look, 19th century approach, and requiring many hours of work, all true, and all total irrelevant, showing a total lack or understanding of the "spirit" of Gingery's books. Gingery's in his series and in the Lathe book, take you through many time honored, and nearly lost techniques of metal working. Just think of what you will learn, foundry work, metal casting, scrapping, drilling, machining. You actually can build a Lathe that is just as accurate as any comercial lathe on the market, it is (if properly built) a precision Lathe (.001) that you have made yourself. In fact the lathe will help to build itself, the only machine that can do that. If you are a very good scrounger you could make this for next to nothing. Sure you could go out and buy a small Mini-lathe, but then think of all the things you could learn by making it yourself. Not to mention, any accessory you can dream of, you can make yourself. My lathe is about 2/3 done, and I've learned more than I thought possible. Gingery's books are small and well written, very curt and to the point, but complete. All you need to know is there. Read carefully, he does not make a big deal of some of the most important parts, so skip a sentence and you'll miss a lot....

Step by step Mr.Gingery makes you feel you can do this, in fact it is the most compleat "build a lathe book" I have ever read (yes theres more than one). There is a lot of casting involved so get the first book (the charcoal foundry) as they build on each other. The book is fairly simply writen and well illistrated.

Dave's books are fantastic. I have built the charcoal foundry, lathe, milling machine and electric furnace, and had a great time doing it. These books will teach you the common sense approach to metalworking and inspire you to do much more than you thought possible in the home shop.

I bought the whole series of Gingery metalworking books, and have learned an unbelievable amount from all of them. I've build the furnace (although mine is powered by propane) and have nearly completed the construction of the lathe. Gingery (pronounced with hard g's, by the way, as in "gruff") writes with a down-to-earth style that makes it feel like your uncle or grandfather is sitting in the room with you, sharing his wisdom. The pithy writing style gave me more than one good chuckle as Gingery describes some mistake he made and what he learned from it during the writing of the books. Highly recommended!

As a follow up to the excellent book, "Build Your Own Charcoal Foundry", David Gingery shows you how to use the foundry developed in the previous book to build an inexpensive working lathe. His clear step by step instructions make it easy to follow.

The book (and the series) is a great way to get introduced to the whole process of metalworking. Everything is very doable. I have now found myself constantly looking for sources of scrap aluminum! The plans are quite thorough and detailed with accurate drawings of the patterns for casting the parts. My only complaint is that the end of the book starts to lose the detail and starts making assumptions on one's abilities whereas the first three quarters of the book pretty much hand-hold you through the process. Once you get to casting and making the tailstock, it gets a bit more challenging.

I got this book in order to save money on a new hobby I decided to take up. Metal working. I got this book out of order. It seems that to do these projects you must follow the order in which these books were made.My mistake. So before you buy this book thinking you will jump straight into makeing a lathe get the charcoal foundry first. I have read very fast through this book as I just received it today. So for the few hours I have owned it, it seems to be possible to build and after reading other reviews I have no doubt it is very possible. So my review of the book is a bit premature my goal is mostly to inform the new buyers of this book to pay attention to the numbers on the covers of these books. They are there for a reason. The pieces you want to build relies on the previous book(s). Books after the metal lathe may be diffrent. They may not require the previous books. I do not have them yet but if I was to bet I would bet that you need every book before the one you intend to work through. So before the mill or the drill press or any of the others I would suggest buying the previous books first.

If you want to make your own metal lathe from scrap, this is the book. The most sophisticated equipment you need is a hand drill and some taps.

This is a very well written book for anyone that would like to make a hobby lathe, is interested in casting, or would like to learn more about machining. The book clearly goes thru all the steps required to build your own hobby metal lathe. Some of the manufacturing techniques are old and/or out of date but that is not a problem so much as an advantage. If you have literally nothing when you start you can follow the book exactly as is and build the lathe. If you have some basic tools or more advanced tools, then you can follow the main idea in the book but use what you have to make the work go faster and easier.

This one of six books by the author, each building upon the previous one. The text details how to build your own metal lathe with a minimum of ready-made parts, based primarily on aluminum castings you make yourself (as shown in Book #1 of the series).

I did not build the lathe, but I did read this and his "How to Build A Milling Machine" book. The author takes the approach of using 19th century techniques and designs, showing how to emulate them with today's hardware store components. Sadly, the books lack any color photos. There are tons of drawings, and a couple of moderately clear black and white photos.

While interesting, the machines seem to appear VERY home-made when complete. It is also clear that many, many hours are required in the construction.

Although I did find the author's "can do" approach encouraging, I think you'd be better off saving your money for a ready-made lathe...