Home made 3d printed cue lathe

[RussPrince]

Not exactly "machinery" but thought I'd share a fun project I completed about a year ago. It's a working 3d printed lathe that's belt driven from a harbor freight drill and speed controller. Not nearly rigid enough to cut or turn things, but more than capable for minor tip/shaft work.

Features an adjustable 3 jaw chuck. Each jaw has an adjustable pad to get the rotation true. At the back there's a cheap ebay mini chuck I use for holding the end of the shaft when doing tip work, and a tailstock with a live center (uses a thrust bearing) I use for spinning the whole shaft.

Like I said I can't really cut anything with it, there's just too much flex, but it works great for helping out friends with tip work or shaft cleaning. Was a fun project and I use it all the time.

 

[Michael Webb]

Looks interesting.
I wish I knew more about 3D printing.
Someone local made chalk holders once. Looked nice but when you put them in your case.
They melted. What a mess.

 

[RussPrince]

Looks interesting.
I wish I knew more about 3D printing.
Someone local made chalk holders once. Looked nice but when you put them in your case.
They melted. What a mess.

odd. i've printed all types of chalk holders before too. most plastics take at least 140+ degrees before they'll "melt" to any degree (called the glass transition temperature). some much higher than that. generally should be safe, but if he used pla then yes it's melting/warping temperature is too low. abs (lego plastic) or petg plastics are a much safer plastic to use. my lathe parts are printed in petg

 

[tg_vegas]

That's pretty impressive work for a home project. Congrats.

 

[TrxR]

Looks interesting.
I wish I knew more about 3D printing.
Someone local made chalk holders once. Looked nice but when you put them in your case.
They melted. What a mess.

I bought some 3d printed chalk holders from a guy on here for some Toam V10. It went through the clothes washer and dryer and both the holder and chalk survived perfectly fine.

 

[Michael Webb]

I have no idea what he used. They all fell apart.

 

[R2PQZ]

Not exactly "machinery" but thought I'd share a fun project I completed about a year ago. It's a working 3d printed lathe that's belt driven from a harbor freight drill and speed controller. Not nearly rigid enough to cut or turn things, but more than capable for minor tip/shaft work.

Features an adjustable 3 jaw chuck. Each jaw has an adjustable pad to get the rotation true. At the back there's a cheap ebay mini chuck I use for holding the end of the shaft when doing tip work, and a tailstock with a live center (uses a thrust bearing) I use for spinning the whole shaft.

Like I said I can't really cut anything with it, there's just too much flex, but it works great for helping out friends with tip work or shaft cleaning. Was a fun project and I use it all the time.

3D cue coming next?

 

[RussPrince]

3D cue coming next?

actually a 3d printed butt is feasible. i've actually made extensions using carbon fiber tubes and 3d printed inserts to hold the pin.

 

[2rgrbn]

They have 3D metal printers now the sky is the limit
The Carmel 700M is a metal additive manufacturing (AM) system made by XJet. XJet is a manufacturer from Israel. The XJet Carmel 700M industrial 3D printer uses patented NanoParticle Jetting technology to 3D print with metal materials. only $600,000.00

 

[cueman]

Not exactly "machinery" but thought I'd share a fun project I completed about a year ago. It's a working 3d printed lathe that's belt driven from a harbor freight drill and speed controller. Not nearly rigid enough to cut or turn things, but more than capable for minor tip/shaft work.

Features an adjustable 3 jaw chuck. Each jaw has an adjustable pad to get the rotation true. At the back there's a cheap ebay mini chuck I use for holding the end of the shaft when doing tip work, and a tailstock with a live center (uses a thrust bearing) I use for spinning the whole shaft.

Like I said I can't really cut anything with it, there's just too much flex, but it works great for helping out friends with tip work or shaft cleaning. Was a fun project and I use it all the time.

It looks pretty cool.

 

[kling&allen]

actually a 3d printed butt is feasible. i've actually made extensions using carbon fiber tubes and 3d printed inserts to hold the pin.

I've made 3d printed joint and butt collars. They are inferior in every way to phenolic/juma/tomahawk/wood/etc but it was a fun project and they functioned better than I thought.

 

[tlcff8]

What software did you use to design the parts? Impressive!

 

[tomatoshooter]

actually a 3d printed butt is feasible. i've actually made extensions using carbon fiber tubes and 3d printed inserts to hold the pin.

Why is a shaft not feasible?

 

[Ģüśţāṿ]

I've made 3d printed joint and butt collars. They are inferior in every way to phenolic/juma/tomahawk/wood/etc but it was a fun project and they functioned better than I thought.

What material did you print with? I've considered trying this myself and will likely try both nylonX and nylonG.

 

[kling&allen]

What material did you print with? I've considered trying this myself and will likely try both nylonX and nylonG.

I used regular PLA. I think experimenting with different materials is a good idea and would produce interesting results. One interesting issue is that regular 3D printers aren't very good at printing at the tolerances cuemakers need, so you will see that you resulting collar will be far from perfect. I suppose if you could sand down the collar as part of the finishing step if you were going to actually release cues with 3D printed components.

 

[Ģüśţāṿ]

I plan on making a few test pieces oversized to see how they look when cut down. If they look like crap then it's not a viable option right then and there. Both of those nylons look very promising given their properties, but I'm sure it will take some time to get the print settings up to par. Both are very sensitive to moisture so keeping them dry is a critical component.

 

[kling&allen]

I plan on making a few test pieces oversized to see how they look when cut down. If they look like crap then it's not a viable option right then and there. Both of those nylons look very promising given their properties, but I'm sure it will take some time to get the print settings up to par. Both are very sensitive to moisture so keeping them dry is a critical component.

Here's a joint collar in PLA. Notice the sanding marks at top where I turned it concentric (circular) on my lathe as the printed ring was off by a few (several) thou. I suppose one could print it really undersized and then add lots of epoxy on top.

Here's a butt collar / integrated bumper I made out of TPU. This had good functionality but feels like crap in one's hand.