New Lathe Today

Butch Lambert said:
Walker-Tex ranger,
That's about asking how far is up. I've had people over that will never learn regardless of time spent. It ain't rocket science, but a little mechanical knowledge helps and a lot of common sense. Figure a Grizzly and tooling just for a PPC barrel-$5,000. If you get good, you will have a lot of self satisfaction and you will be able to put on a barrel when you wanted. It will take a long time to recoup your money.
Butch
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Thanks Butch!! This is not really about the $, it is more about the feeling of accomplishment in learning something new, and being able to do this for myself.
 
WalkerTXRanger said:
A question from a guy here that has no experience with a lathe whatsoever, but has some time and a little money that I might be willing to spend on good equipment and to learn.

How difficult is it to learn how to do precision barrelwork (thread, fit, chamber, crown) on a lathe like the 4003? How would one go about this? Best to take some classes? I know it would take years to learn to chamber like Bryant, Borden, Starks etc, but a guy has got to start somewhere...
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By all means take some clases, this will give you some ground work to start off with. BTY one never stops learning even after 40 years.
 
WalkerTXRanger

WalkerTXRanger said:
A question from a guy here that has no experience with a lathe whatsoever, but has some time and a little money that I might be willing to spend on good equipment and to learn.

How difficult is it to learn how to do precision barrelwork (thread, fit, chamber, crown) on a lathe like the 4003? How would one go about this? Best to take some classes? I know it would take years to learn to chamber like Bryant, Borden, Starks etc, but a guy has got to start somewhere...
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you might consider some of the summer sessions at Trinidad State Junior College: http://www.trinidadstate.edu/NRA/sum06.html These are one week classes. If you took the basic and advanced machine shop you would learn quite a bit in those two weeks. I went to this school some 26 years ago and still remember a lot of what I learned even though I haven't used it much since then. That's changing though as I've bought a lathe and am getting close to buying a mill. :D
 
Closer Options-

Jerry:

You might seriously consider a closer NRA program, which has several machine shop and general gunsmithing courses- Murray State College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. They've got a fantastic machine shop, much newer and larger than Trinidad- I have been to both. Here's their flyer from 2007, don't know if they have Summer 2008 published yet.

Good Luck- it's a great way to spend a couple of weeks in the summer!:D
 
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