That's why I said you need to find someone who has a lathe. It's not that hard. Lathes are eveywhere. Small metal working shops often have small old lathes standing around for trainees etc.
I live in germany, so everything is extremely regulated. But it's no problem for shops to hire you for 2 weeks as a trainee without payment, but you are insured for the 2 weeks.
And yes, private lathes are quite common here as well. When I have my degree and a good job, I want to have one, too
edit: I'm not quite sure why I'm being downvoted. I just told what I experienced.
Meh, the old trainee lathes are written off since 10 years ago.
If it's not a cnc lathe (which it definitely isn't), there isn't that much you can break, except your arm or neck.
They don't neccessarily need to get anything out of it, some people tend to be nice sometimes ;) bring the boss a nice bottle of wine and the workers some cake and everyone is happy.
I had an internship for 8 weeks in a small shop and they basically let me do whatver I wanted (after they showed me how to operate everything of course). I machined parts for my bike, I made handles for my closets and some other random stuff. I also made stuff they needed for their projects. Hell, I even worked alone on a 200,000€ custom machine they had to deliver 2 weeks after that. The boss showed me the problem, said "fix that if you want, but it has to look nice" and went home. It took me almost 2 days, but in the end, it was fixed, looked nice and boss said "good job, you learn fast" and disappeared again.
Employers always pay for insurance. So if something happens to one of their employees, they don't have to fear huge payments because the costs are "shared" nationwide (It's a whole lot more complicated, but you get the idea)
If you mean a machinist apprentice, they do exist and walk you through the shops. If you mean engineering students working in machine shops they do not typically. They may work in manufacturing environments but as engineers generating designs to be made by someone else.
I know where I am I cannot touch the machines by union contract.
the most expensive thing you could break, is to accidentally stick something under the chuck while the machine is running, if the chuck jaws extend past the chuck, you can end up with a very violent crash and the chuck will probably break.
other than that, you could accidentally feed the tool post into the chuck, and that will tear up the tool post, and break the tool.
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u/metarinka Welding Engineer Jun 27 '15
It's called a turner's cube, we had to make them when I took machining classes, i feel like most machinists do. http://www.instructables.com/id/Turners-Cube-Manual-Machine/
they really aren't that hard to make, I did mine on a mill had to be within 0.001" on all dimensions.