I haven't had a truly functioning shop since 2015.  I went through a career move, built a new shop, & finally retired.  In that process, I sold most of my equipment, bought the tooling from a large machine shop in disarray, sorted and kept what I might use, and eventually purchased a new 13x40 lathe and a Bridgeport mill.

I've been putting off getting the equipment running, but started in on the lathe this week.  It's leveled, grouted in place, and I spent yesterday putting fluids in it and going through the manual recommended break-in procedures since it's a new machine.   

Today, I thought I'd fit and chamber a barrel to teach myself the new machine.  I've done many, many barrels on my old Atlas 10" lathe.  Always used high speed steel I ground myself, in a lantern toolpost or homemade 4 way and boring bar holders I made myself.  All that tooling is gone, sold with the lathe.  The new lathe has a Phase II copy of the Aloris quick change.  With one tool holder  .    That will take a few days to remedy before new toolholders arrive.   

I have a few HSS bits, unground, correct size for the one toolholder.  I have a lot of carbide.  I chucked one in, did a few cuts, and decided I'd better regroup and figure out what I'm doing, before I ruin what I'm working on.   

In the machine shop mess I purchased, sorted and liquidated, I had a huge assortment of indexable carbide tooling.  Most too big to use, like 1" boring bars and 3" shell mills.  I sorted out and kept the smaller stuff, which was mostly new and unused for the lathe tooling.  I kept a lot of inserts, not knowing what I could/would use.   

Today I started laying out the indexable lathe tooling I have and pairing it with inserts.  99% of the inserts I have don't fit the tooling.  I did manage to find inserts for every piece of tooling, though.  Now to figure out which works for what, and get set up in toolholders ready to use.

New equipment and tooling is a steep learning curve for someone that's never worked as a machinist.  I was really tempted to mount a lantern toolpost and grind some HSS bits for the toolholders for it, but I resisted.  I should be able to puzzle this out and it will work a lot better when I do.

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