flexible_coupling
Western Thunderer
I'm considering buying a "serious bit of hardware" to help in my future model-building exploits. I live in VERY small quarters at present (and for the immediately-foreseeable future) - and the idea of a well-placed vacuum cleaner hose, possibly a cardboard-box "cupboard" to restrict the flight path of swarf, and a compact mill/lathe setup such as the Unimat 1 Classic looks like a brilliant option. 'Scary Ideas' like S7 have previously been ruled out as I don't have any other access to such equipment. To then actually have a metal lathe and a mill, to enable accurate and neat scratchbuilding of chassis etc. would be excellent and would open the door to many possibilities. I'm just wary of ending up with a white elephant - I would like to be able to look at machining down wheels, potentially making custom brass bearings, chimneys and domes and little fittings, and milling up nylon or brass chassis frames. The description of being able to turn "soft metals" concerns me slightly... I still have the fundamentals from high-school metal shop in the back of my mind - cut slowly and gradually and keep it lubricated - curious to see if anyone's been-there-and-done-that with machining steel wheel tyres with these little beasties?