It's good to know that you never completely lose the ability to operate a lathe properly. It has been four years since I last had the chance to use one, my second machine tools cutting threads, now that is one of the more nerve wracking tasks I have ever had the pleasure to accomplish. The reason being that if the lathe skips by a minute fraction all your threads go to shite and you land up with this luverly looking thing that does not resemble a threaded cylinder.
But I digress, the lathe and I where reintroduced after a four years absence. There I was standing shyly in the corner, toolbox in hand glancing over at it with uncertainty in my eyes. There it was a few hundred pounds of spinning machinery, standing tall and proud, hungry for metal. I made my way over trying as I might to hide behind the others in our class, that way I could sneak up upon it unawares. Why are you looking at me funny? I thought it would behave better if it didn't know my intentions and yes you do get the occasional odd look from your classmates as you tiptoe by them on your way to the lathe.
My intensions were of course to use it's spinning motion to cut two bars of stock, one copper and one mild steel, down to size. They were needed to complete the EDM project we have to hand in at the end of semester. So with much trepidation I approach LAM #12 [otherwise known as my lathe for the day], set up the machine, made sure the cutting tool was properly centered and then went to beg the help of a colleague as I could not quiet recall what the cutting and feed speeds for mild steel. He lumbered over to the lathe, made his introductions and pointed out that at the current speed I would have bit of cutting tool flying everywhere. So he backed off the cutting speed, corrected my feed and voila, we were all set to make the first cut. I have not been so nervous on a machine in a long time. To the bemusement of a few friends I shouted, "CLEAR" they backed off and I proceeded to make the first cut. To my great pleasure it went smoothly with no hiccups, no maimings or injuries.
The piece is almost near completion all I have to do is come up with a shape for the punch and die; I get to mill it next week. The only downside to spending 4-5 hours in front of a lathe is that you end the day with achy hips knees, ankles and a mildly stiff neck. [I must be getting old ;) ]