cut cast iron on mini lathe 7x14

MINDLESS BORING:Cutting a 6" Cast iron fly wheel on a mini lathe video. Big dog bd7x14 mini metal lathe turning down the diameter on a 6" weight made from cast iron found in the backyard. To cut a circumference of this size on a mini lathe, while not impossible, definitely a challenge and abit on the scary side as the first chucking operation didn't go well due to severe out of balance and lack of a proper center hole to mount on the lathe chuck.

The 7" swing mini lathes all suffer a short y- axis travel, both towards the operator of the lathe and just passed center. Creative tooling angles must be devised to cut a 6" + diameter.

Using brazed carbide tools, I was able to slowly bore out an acceptable center to flip the cast iron wheel and commence to remove imbalanced metal and increase speed. Most mini lathes as delivered will not cut cast iron this well with out many hours of tuning the lathe. After many hundreds of passes, i was pleased to have a cast iron disk that may be used as a fly wheel for a small engine, a home made fly cutter may be. re purposing metal such as this cast iron weight is very cost effective albeit labor intensive. = SHARE ROCKNTV1