More "T" nuts ?

[Frank S]

More T nuts, this time almost real ones made from a bar of 7/8" square keystock
Trust me it would be cheaper to buy them

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your T-Nuts to our Machining category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

T-Nuts by Frank S

tags: hold down

[WmRMeyers]

More T nuts, this time almost real ones made from a bar of 7/8" square keystock
Trust me it would be cheaper to buy them

You know what your time is worth, so I couldn't argue with you for your T-nuts, but the ones I need go for about $7-10 each when you can find them. These are for a Unimat lathe. I bought a foot of 12mm square keystock, and figure I can get something like 15-20 of them out of that foot of stock. I need something like 12 of them, six for each of my Unimats. They are gigantic! 12mm square by 6mm tall. https://groups.io/g/Unimat/files/Drawings/A2A070020.PDF You probably need to be a member of the group to see the print for them. Currently they are unobtanium. That price I quoted above is as of a few weeks ago, when last I looked. Today, a search for Unimat T-nuts came up with zero results, and I only got through 3 pages of 200 items per page before believing them. Turning them on the lathe will probably be faster than milling them. I may find out today. I can reach my lathe (not the Unimats, they're still getting cleaned up) and I have a 4-jaw chuck, and parting tools that should save me a bit of time.

there are alternatives, like the t-nuts used on 80-20 extruded aluminum stock, but those have to be modified to work, and it's probably finicky and time consuming for that, too. There aren't any really good answers. Except "Fugedaboutit!" But I've wanted one of these things since I was a kid, and finally have not just one but two. One is going to be set up as a lathe, the other as a mill. I've got blank milling tables laid out, and ready to drill/tap/mill so either machine can be set up and used for whatever I want to use it for. They ain't much of a lathe, but the one that came in it's own box weighed under 25 pounds. I can think of uses for a very transportable micro-machine tool... Do need a way to power it by hand. Thinking about a 24vdc motor conversion for them, too. Something to keep me out of trouble while the world goes to crap around me.

Bill

[Frank S]

You know what your time is worth, so I couldn't argue with you for your T-nuts, but the ones I need go for about $7-10 each when you can find them. These are for a Unimat lathe. I bought a foot of 12mm square keystock, and figure I can get something like 15-20 of them out of that foot of stock. I need something like 12 of them, six for each of my Unimats. They are gigantic! 12mm square by 6mm tall. https://groups.io/g/Unimat/files/Drawings/A2A070020.PDF You probably need to be a member of the group to see the print for them. Currently they are unobtanium. That price I quoted above is as of a few weeks ago, when last I looked. Today, a search for Unimat T-nuts came up with zero results, and I only got through 3 pages of 200 items per page before believing them. Turning them on the lathe will probably be faster than milling them. I may find out today. I can reach my lathe (not the Unimats, they're still getting cleaned up) and I have a 4-jaw chuck, and parting tools that should save me a bit of time.

there are alternatives, like the t-nuts used on 80-20 extruded aluminum stock, but those have to be modified to work, and it's probably finicky and time consuming for that, too. There aren't any really good answers. Except "Fugedaboutit!" But I've wanted one of these things since I was a kid, and finally have not just one but two. One is going to be set up as a lathe, the other as a mill. I've got blank milling tables laid out, and ready to drill/tap/mill so either machine can be set up and used for whatever I want to use it for. They ain't much of a lathe, but the one that came in it's own box weighed under 25 pounds. I can think of uses for a very transportable micro-machine tool... Do need a way to power it by hand. Thinking about a 24vdc motor conversion for them, too. Something to keep me out of trouble while the world goes to crap around me.

Bill

A lot of things I make can be bought cheaper than what it cost me in time alone but all too frequently budgetary concerns out weighs time spent.
I do hear you about some things being unobtanium now days, even if it is not unobtainable by the time I place my order and the time it is delivered I forget why in the heck I ordered it or what I ordered it for, because I had moved on and made use of something else.
I have thought several times about buying or building a 4x12 lathe but what I'd really like is to get another Du-More II versimill like my avatar. After I had made an adapter so I could remove the rt angle head and mount a chuck on it, with it mounted on the 48 inch way bed it made a great little lathe, the 3/4 Hp motor meant it had enough power to do some serious work for its size

[WmRMeyers]

A lot of things I make can be bought cheaper than what it cost me in time alone but all too frequently budgetary concerns out weighs time spent.
I do hear you about some things being unobtanium now days, even if it is not unobtainable by the time I place my order and the time it is delivered I forget why in the heck I ordered it or what I ordered it for, because I had moved on and made use of something else.
I have thought several times about buying or building a 4x12 lathe but what I'd really like is to get another Du-More II versimill like my avatar. After I had made an adapter so I could remove the rt angle head and mount a chuck on it, with it mounted on the 48 inch way bed it made a great little lathe, the 3/4 Hp motor meant it had enough power to do some serious work for its size

When I decided that I needed to get into machining (because there are a few things you simply cannot do in metal without a lathe) I bought the simultaneously largest and most expensive and cheapest and smallest metal cutting lathe I could afford. A Harbor Freight 93212 Mini-Lathe. It was the only lathe I could find that day. $369 out the door from Harbor Freight, with the 20%-off coupon. What I wanted was an Atlas 10" to 12" lathe, or a South Bend 9" to 13" lathe. I could not find one. And I had just lost my job, and most of my income, and it was buy that today, or do without. That was in mid-2008. I struggled to re-learn to us it, and did really miserably. I had read about the mini-lathes, and at first thought that it was the mini-lathe that was the problem. By late 2014, I was moaning about how hard it was to figure out what was wrong, and how to fix it. My wife cut to the quick. She said "Bill, take another class. Last one was in 1973. Started in February 2015, and about the finish the class, or at least run out of class, by the end of May. Ten more class days, IIRC. My final projects are cutting an ACME external thread, and then a matching internal thread. This is normally a class a decent student can finish in about 8 months going full time. I started full time, but I was also working full time, so moved to the night class, very part-time, at two nights a week. Lathe was supposed to be the first machine tool I learned, but all the machines were in use when I finished the bookwork and benchwork portions. So I started on Clausing Kondia mill. Love it as much as I remember loving the shaper and lathe in my first class. It's taken me nearly three years to get through lathe the portion of the class. Turned out not to be the mini-lathe that was my problem, either. It was getting accurate measurements of my parts. That and not letting myself get in too much of rush. Teacher says I'm turning into a decent machinist. For old student, maybe. I need lots of practice.

But yeah, I know what you mean about "budgetary concerns."

Bill

[Frank S]

You should have seen some of my first attempts at turning things, really couldn't call them machining I was at the time barely going on 14or I may have been going on 13, I had been working at the blacksmith shop since I was 11. I had bought the little Southbend with a few bits of mostly used or broken HSS that fit the Lantern tool post no mics or verniers just a single pair of 6 inch calipers that could either be used inside or outside. The only chuck that came with it was a 4 jaw, which through the years I figured out if you can only have 1 chuck then a 4 jaw independent is the best chuck to have, although I try to avoid having to use any of mine on any of my lathes today since they are such a pain to change out on my lathes. it had a steady rest and a tail stock and that was about it. But it was mine even though neither the 70 year old Blacksmith or his 45 year old Welder son could even imagine why I spent a month's pay for it, but it wasn't too long a time before I was actually making useable things on it and making shafts and the like round again after William had welded up the wear spots on them. I read books from the school library to teach myself some of the aspects of machining. Our school ag shop didn't even have a lathe. about all we had was a buzz box welder a cutting torch and a small drill press plus a few hand tools, until I started helping the coach instruct the other kids Coach was good at coaching football or basketball or teaching history but he was about as mechanically inclined as a barn yard bull, he might eventually figure out how to open the gate but would never be able to close it behind him. ANytime he broke something he brought it to the Blacksmith shop which is how he became to rely on me to help out in shop classes. By the time I was in grade 10 he almost never came to the shop except to hand out some study materials or to see if we needed anything. I struck upon what I thought would be a cool project that we could make, a power hacksaw, so everyone made a power hacksaw. I still have one that was given to me by one of the kids in one of the classes. it was the one I helped him make while we were in school.
Did you know you can make a poor mans scraper out of a power hack saw or cut threads with one? may not make perfect threads but it is possible I showed the kids how to do it after we/they had learned how to make a bolt just using a file.