Spindles for different kinds of MultiMachines

Spindle types

How to rank them?

By cost? A rear axle shaft with bearings and a hub should cost almost nothing. If you have the inner end of the axle shaft turned down to fit a Chinese flange bearing and make a (temporary) hardwood bearing housing for the outer bearing then you have the heart of a good and almost free metal lathe. It could be free if you built one of our "temporary" lathes first to turn both front and rear bearings and retainers.

By the jobs they do? The hollow pipe spindle shown in the movie and plans is hard to beat for versatility and accuracy. If you bore a block with a 3 7/8" bore to 100mm then the roller bearings for this are pretty cheap as is the boring of 2 cylinders of the block.

By spindle bore size? A $17,000 Grizzly lathe has a 3 1/8" spindle bore but a MultiMachine built from a broken Cummins block can have an even larger one. The MM spindle will have to turn pretty slowly if a pressure oil system (messy) is not installed but can be built from a discarded Chinese drill press column and home cast Zinc/Aluminum bushings. My favorite idea because the big spindle bore can be used to make any number of special spindles to make specialized machines.