Re: FWIW first welding job, 2 years on

"Jim Wilkins"  wrote in message news:vjhbbh$3e2nh$1@dont-email.me...
The valuable equipment is a lathe for power transmission components and a
vertical mill for the static structure, plus a horizontal bandsaw to cut
stock.
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I didn't include a drill press because the mill makes a good one on small parts and the lathe drills into large parts such as the ends of long shafts that can pass through the spindle bore. Its size is a consideration if you plan to build or repair machinery. My lathe takes 1" diameter through the headstock in 5C collets and 1-3/8" in a chuck. The 18HP tractor engine has 1" output shafts.
Collets are very convenient if you make parts from new ground rod stock but one 4 jaw chuck will let you do almost anything.
A woodworking drill press may not be rigid enough to drill accurately perpendicular holes in steel.
There are indexing fixtures for a mill that allow cutting splines in a shaft and teeth on a gear, so you can repair a broken tooth by building up with weld and then trimming to match the others.
I ground a lathe bit into a fly cutter shaped like the tooth gap and machined a replacement for the steering sector gear on my old tractor. The original cast gear didn't survive the extra stress of my bucket loader attachment. The motorcycle chain sprocket I bought to drive the rear wheel on my sawmill has 13 internal spline teeth. If I'd noticed I would have asked for one with 12 as all factors of 24 are easy to index. I used a 52 tooth lathe change gear to index and mill matching slots in its drive shaft.