Loading…
2
Took my truck to a shop in Dayton that still has a hand-cranked brake lathe, and the owner let me watch him use it
I was dropping off a customer's dog at my sister's place in Dayton last Tuesday and killed some time walking past an old shop on Third Street with the garage door open. The owner was turning a rotor on a lathe that looked older than he is, and he said he's had it since 1979 because new ones cut too fast and leave chatter marks. He let me stand there for 20 minutes and explained how he feeds the cutter by feel, checking thickness with a mic every pass. I have been drilling and replacing rotors for years and never once thought about turning them on something that slow. Any of you older guys still run a manual lathe in your shop, or is that just a Dayton thing?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
wendy_sanchez6h ago
The claim that "new ones cut too fast and leave chatter marks" sounds like a sales pitch to me. A newer lathe doesn't have to run fast, the operator controls the speed, so blaming the machine for chatter is odd. I also doubt the part about him checking with a mic every pass like it's some lost art, that's just normal brake work. The part about him feeding by feel is the only believable bit, sure, but it's not magic, anyone turning rotors for a living learns that. Sounds more like a guy who likes his old machine and a good story than some big lesson about slow being better.
4