The Metal Lathe (Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap)

This is a very well written book for anyone that would like to make a hobby lathe, is interested in casting, or would like to learn more about machining. The book clearly goes thru all the steps required to build your own hobby metal lathe. Some of the manufacturing techniques are old and/or out of date but that is not a problem so much as an advantage. If you have literally nothing when you start you can follow the book exactly as is and build the lathe. If you have some basic tools or more advanced tools, then you can follow the main idea in the book but use what you have to make the work go faster and easier.

One reviewer knocked this book for lack of color photos, "very" home-made look, 19th century approach, and requiring many hours of work, all true, and all total irrelevant, showing a total lack or understanding of the "spirit" of Gingery's books. Gingery's in his series and in the Lathe book, take you through many time honored, and nearly lost techniques of metal working. Just think of what you will learn, foundry work, metal casting, scrapping, drilling, machining. You actually can build a Lathe that is just as accurate as any comercial lathe on the market, it is (if properly built) a precision Lathe (.001) that you have made yourself. In fact the lathe will help to build itself, the only machine that can do that. If you are a very good scrounger you could make this for next to nothing. Sure you could go out and buy a small Mini-lathe, but then think of all the things you could learn by making it yourself. Not to mention, any accessory you can dream of, you can make yourself. My lathe is about 2/3 done, and I've learned more than I thought possible. Gingery's books are small and well written, very curt and to the point, but complete. All you need to know is there. Read carefully, he does not make a big deal of some of the most important parts, so skip a sentence and you'll miss a lot....

Dave's books are fantastic. I have built the charcoal foundry, lathe, milling machine and electric furnace, and had a great time doing it. These books will teach you the common sense approach to metalworking and inspire you to do much more than you thought possible in the home shop.

I bought the whole series of Gingery metalworking books, and have learned an unbelievable amount from all of them. I've build the furnace (although mine is powered by propane) and have nearly completed the construction of the lathe. Gingery (pronounced with hard g's, by the way, as in "gruff") writes with a down-to-earth style that makes it feel like your uncle or grandfather is sitting in the room with you, sharing his wisdom. The pithy writing style gave me more than one good chuckle as Gingery describes some mistake he made and what he learned from it during the writing of the books. Highly recommended!

As a follow up to the excellent book, "Build Your Own Charcoal Foundry", David Gingery shows you how to use the foundry developed in the previous book to build an inexpensive working lathe. His clear step by step instructions make it easy to follow.