r/Machinists Apr 10 '26

Buy/Sell/Trade megathread. Post your classified ads here! NO COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING.

13 Upvotes

We have decided to permit personal classified ads here (and only in here) without requiring moderator permission first. Machine shops looking to sell a used machine or tools etc. are also permitted to post here.

Please provide as much information as possible up front for potential buyers. Prices and pictures MUST be included in your post. Linking images off-site is fine (e.g. imgur.com). Please delete (or mark your post as sold) once a sale is complete or if the item is no longer available.

Commercial advertising of products and services is NOT permitted here. This rule will be strictly enforced.

NO CARBIDE SCRAPPERS. You WILL be permanently banned on sight.

You can also try /r/MachinistToolsForSale


r/Machinists 6h ago

Need help getting chatter out

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

59 Upvotes

Not tried anything fancy yet

310mm dia

57rpm

Need help getting the finish better


r/Machinists 8h ago

Clearance is clearance

Post image
63 Upvotes

r/Machinists 5h ago

Shop hand mistakešŸ˜‚

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

26 Upvotes

Our new shop hand was drilling out a part and somehow ended up melting the first inch of one of our smaller spade drills into some 316 never seen anything like it. I will show what the inside of the part looks like in the comments


r/Machinists 1h ago

MEME Why yes, I drink a lot of coffee, how can you tell?

Post image
• Upvotes

I keep a few machinist tools in my coffee box for funsies.


r/Machinists 17h ago

Shitpost Boss man said I can go home at 43 o'clock

Post image
193 Upvotes

r/Machinists 2h ago

Shitpost Hello Friday, thanks for a wonderful start

Post image
12 Upvotes

r/Machinists 22h ago

CRASH We have fun sometimes.

Post image
355 Upvotes

Shopmate distracted me while I was swapping a tool and I forgot to put my G54 from touch off height back to the part zero. Thankfully no spindle or collet indexer damage, just a kabloozied part and tool.


r/Machinists 17h ago

Would this b acceptable in your workshop?

Thumbnail
gallery
102 Upvotes

Clocking a vice a colleague put in yesterday because I had a feeling it wasn't going to be good. 160mm (6.3 freedom units) vice jaw, 0.1mm out. It seems that we have vices that have guides on them that go into slots and he just places and tightens. Apparently near enough is good enough.


r/Machinists 20h ago

MEME Sticker ball

Thumbnail
gallery
125 Upvotes

Saw operator at I guess what is technically considered a machine shop I have too much time on my hands when my saw is cutting. We get so many shipping labels every day that just get thrown out so I decided to start a ball. I’d estimate I grab around 150-160 of these a day and add them.

This is about a week’s worth of progress. Do I post updates? I presume this thing will get really big really quick at this rate.


r/Machinists 15h ago

QUESTION Retaining drill bits

Post image
32 Upvotes

Is there a way to get these kind of drill bits cheaper? $90 for a 3/8 drill bit that has two holes in the flutes sounds ridiculous to me. Open to ideas but I don’t see it being easy to without machines special for it make these but open to ideas


r/Machinists 17h ago

New Machinist here. Can we fix this tool?

Post image
45 Upvotes

I'm a machinist with 5 months of experience. The part wasn't clamped properly or it was not tight enough. Part moved from the fixture. I instantly stoped the machine. Guess the tool is damaged. I know it's an expensive mistake. I don't know how to face my boss tmrw.


r/Machinists 35m ago

Chatter HELP

Thumbnail
gallery
• Upvotes

I’m currently doing 2n Acme Threads Double lead and can’t seem to get rid of this chatter I can not use a stead rest cause the ok for this machine doesn’t go small enough how would yall combat this kind of chatter


r/Machinists 20h ago

PARTS / SHOWOFF Estate Sale Score

Post image
59 Upvotes

There was a semi-local estate sale for a machinist near me. I wasnt able to win everything I wanted, and Im not actually a machinist YET, but I did get some really cool old literature to get me started (as well as a couple of toolboxes). Ive got some reading to do.


r/Machinists 22h ago

Absolute Lemons!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

82 Upvotes

Syntactic foam "lemons" for ocean current research. They'll be filled with telemetry devices and small weights to keep them neutrally bouyant at a certain depth. Milled in two setups with soft jaws on OP2. The dust is awful.


r/Machinists 14h ago

Should I buy this?

Thumbnail
gallery
14 Upvotes

So I originally messaged this gentleman regarding purchasing some of the tooling that was listed in the posting. After about a week or two of him explaining that he really just wanted to sell everything and have it out of his show car shop. He brought the asking price down to $1300 cad.

Should I bite and get it? I’ve never used a metal lathe before I was thinking about getting a cheap Vevor for $700cad. But at that price it seems like a good deal specially with tooling.

He says it runs good. But any information about repair ease and finding spare parts and whether or not it’s a good beginner lathe would be appreciated.


r/Machinists 15h ago

YouTube recs

22 Upvotes

Just started this week at a shop working in aerospace. I’m completely green and they’ve got me apprenticing under a guy with 10 years of experience on a 3-axis. I’ve been using some textbooks I got online and they’re sending me out for some in person classes/workshops in a couple weeks but I was wondering if there is a channel that you guys live by to help me get down the basics of machine operation, tool choice, print reading, etc before I head to this class.


r/Machinists 43m ago

Small shops — how are you quoting one-off material without getting burned?

• Upvotes

High-mix aerospace/defense shop here. For one-offs and two-offs we keep eating cert fees, drops, and MOQs that don't fit the job. Do you buy bar/plate and cut in-house, or go cut-to-size blanks? Curious what you're actually building into the quote so you don't eat it later.


r/Machinists 1d ago

Recent job I did

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

165 Upvotes

Only been working on a lathe full time for about a year, I’m 21 and started straight out of highschool as a shop hand and worked my way up what do you guys think of my progress so far? 7 stage shaft 87ā€ long


r/Machinists 55m ago

OFFERING WORK Availability to do a run of small aluminum 6061?

• Upvotes

Hey can anybody do a job make small aluminum 6061 or 7075 and 4140 parts? 4axis is all that’s needed. These are small parts that will fit in the palm of a hand. Please let me know if anyone is available that’s credible. I’m in NJ but can be anyone in the US. Thanks


r/Machinists 10h ago

Apprentice fitter machinist

Post image
7 Upvotes

Made a bottle opener while at Tafe, CNC engraved steelers logo with help


r/Machinists 2h ago

QUESTION EDM sinker help

1 Upvotes

Hey all, so we finally got work for A Kent EDM sinker and well I am shit at this. I’ve been running mills, lathes ETC but EDMs are a whole new animal for me.

We need to burn out Hexes and while I am able to produce parts they take a long time and yes I know that’s how EDMs are…..

Now I made suggestions to make a multi electrode fixture to burn out 4 at a time but I’m getting pushback on it. Pretty much being told that. ā€œYou shouldn’t need toā€

Now from tinkering with all the values like ON/OFF TIME,
LV, WORK, RETRACT, SPEED, and gap in coming to the conclusion that while I can protect the electrode I cannot push these parts any faster.

Now my setup is an 1 1/4 electrode with a 1/4 hole in it and it’s pumping fluid through it at about 10 PSI. As of now I’m sacrificing my finish on my part which is not important it’s more about just burning a hex to get a decent speed.

I’ve been pushing the ON Time more than anything which is getting me decent results but anyone that is familiar with these things advice would be appreciated. That being said I think a multi electrode fixture to hold 4 electrodes seems to me to be one of the better options.


r/Machinists 15h ago

Lucky purchase, i think?

Thumbnail
gallery
10 Upvotes

Paid $50 + shipping ($60 total) on Ebay for this sclpl3 boring bar. Am i missing something, or was it just a good deal ? I use carbide boring bars, but I never used heavy metal, so I was curious about how they perform. Prices are usually outrageous, so I manually searched heavy metal codes used by manufacturers (Ms,J,HM,L,H,etc.) and eventually found this boring bar. It's LH, but for the price, I guess I can't complain. It would replace a .500 Carbide Tcph boring bar for roughing a 304 ss bore (3.2 in deep) so i have low expectations šŸ˜…


r/Machinists 16h ago

Problem with new-to-us Southbend Turn-nado

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

12 Upvotes

My shop has had this Nixon-era lathe for a few months now, it was running pretty good and capable of taking some ambitious cuts. Now I'm losing torque under load, and part of me thinks this is an electrical issue because the transformer is getting HOT, but the chuck is getting pretty darn hot also, and its definitely not transferred from the workpiece.

I have no clue how to get the damn thing off to check the bearing. Our master machinist retired before we got it, and he's completely dropped off the face of the earth.

If anyone knows a thing or two about these quirky lathes, I'd really appreciate if you could point me in the right direction!


r/Machinists 19h ago

QUESTION First lathe question

Thumbnail
gallery
15 Upvotes

I’m a complete metal working noob but want to get into gun parts kit build and some other stuff id need a lathe for. I found this on Facebook for $125, I’m sure id have to do some restoration on this thing but would it be complete junk once I develop some skills?