Those are great little lathes! That extra mass would be nice, for sure.
Not surprising you couldn't figure out what you wanted to do in tech school, I still can't decide what I want to do haha!
I did take a few metalworking classes in high school, studied physics in college and trained in the Mech E shops, then learned a bit from an old timer prototyping machinist at a national lab out in Colorado, and was always hanging around asking questions with the guys in the prototyping shop in grad school while I was fumbling my way through making apparatus for research. I built out the machine shop at my work, but was smart enough to suggest that they hire an apprenticed tool and die maker to run it and subsequently I spend a lot of time picking his brain when I need to do something outside of my own experience. I wish I had more exposure to millwright methods, or at least rigging - it comes up all too often at work and I've had to figure out a lot of things the slow way .
Despite the small size of that 9x20 and swinging a large off-balanced jug (this is a 60mm), I think I can manage a decent surface finish. It took a lot of experimentation with tool geometry and speeds to get there, though. I'm no metallurgist, but there must be a high silica content in these cast aluminum alloys as they are incredibly abrasive. I was about to try PCD inserts (expensive...) before settling on hand-sharpened brazed carbide. Don't need a chip breaker for cast so it's easy to get a nice, sturdy edge on a solid chunk of carbide and I'm not spending as much on inserts. I do use them on the boring bar, though.
View attachment 309160
