Please someone do this…
This is a common manufacturing process.
I personally wouldn’t want to see people doing it in the Woodshop.
Didn’t metals get a new lathe? It was new for me lol
Machine shop lathe could probably handle it. I think I’ve heard @wandrson talk about metal spinning before.
Lots of metal spinners use the same oneway lathe we have in the woodshop. Just need to buy or build the collapsible molds and a custom toolrest. We also need a better first aid kit for all the sharp edges created.
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That’s a woodworking lathe in the video, not an engine lathe like we have in machineshop, and this post perhaps belongs in either woodshop or machineshop, not metalshop. Normally on the engine lathe you’re using a tool held firmly in a toolpost and moving it via turning knobs, i.e. there’s no hand tool use (for the most part). So, beginning with permission from the chairperson in machineshop (@nicksilva) you’d need to make some jigs and tools to do something like this.
Certainly looks interesting
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This is part of the problem with metal spinning: woodworking doesn’t want it because it isn’t wood; machine shop doesn’t want it because it isn’t “machining”.
So it’s stuck in limbo.
Here’s a CNC spinning setup:
here’s a setup on (roughly) our wood lathes
here’s one using a manual setup on a lathe meant to cut metal
So it CAN span all those, in terms of spinning the metal. Maybe Metal Shop DOES need a lathe for spinning…
EDIT: another CNC, because it’s such a nice video
The metal spinning I’ve seen done the chuck is more similar to the type that is used by the wood lathes to mount form to. On a standard metal lathe chuck and cross slide gets in the way. Those spinformers had tool rests like the one depicted where bars can be used for leverage. The slides are really used (except CNC spinformers).
If we were to do this in Machine Shop, I’d recommend getting a wood lathe that would take a large diameter, say 24" and setting it up for spin forming. They don’t need the power or torque that a cutting lathe needs if just doing pure aluminum, but if other metals, need more torque. Aluminum alloys and mild steel works well, we had some SS parts spin formed, work hardening was nasty (they were 60" in diameter when completed) it required stopping sending out for annealing about 4 or 5 times.
I’d suggest as big a diameter as we can get or the object sizes become very limited both as to width and height. Looking at the object he was making that might be pushing the max diameter our engine lathe could do when starting with a blank.
There are some cool things to make. You have to first make your form on a wood lathe (or metal lathe). Very doable. But really not practical on an engine lathe. Notice how he worked the part from the top and bottom. The ways on an engine lathe are massive and in the way compared to the openness of a wood lathe. Plus the cross slide gets in the way as it will always be between the tail stock and chuck (No, we don’t want to take the cross slide off the lathe to be able to do this.)
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The top of my SCA helm was a spun piece and my elbow
cops and tmy shield co were from spun steel pieces
I think that his shows some of that
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I did some metal spinning on a wood lathe when I was younger. always scared me with that sharp metal edge spinning. I demonstrated it a couple of time for the local woodturning club and for woodcraft. Sorby made the tools. eventually they dropped it.
I don’t care of someone wants to do it, but I would not sanction it as something machine shop supports.
