Cutting down valves

pittsburghracer said

Thanks again guys. It’s not something I’m going to jump into soon as I’m pretty well stocked up on valves right now but at least you guys helped me confirm my thoughts that it could be done. I may try both machines for the heck of it. My lathe is just an older sears craftsman model with a 4 jaw chuck and some attachments.

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You can do some pretty impressive work on those lathes if the bearings are in good shape, use SHARP tooling, and you take your time. Bed wear can be worked around. They aren’t real rigid machines so typical carbide inserts may be too blunt. Hand honed carbide or quality HSS tooling will give best result. The four jaw is slower to set up but can be dialed in to a couple tenths if needed. Most three jaws have 2-3 thou runout at a given diameter which may or may not matter depending on what you’re doing.