Rear brake rotor minimum thickness for lathing

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HarryHarrison

HarryHarrison

10 Year
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Jan 10, 2014
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Location
BC, Canada
Hey, I'm on a very limited budget and was wondering what is the minimum thickness companies will allow them to be lathed to?
They've some dings in them I need removed.

Thanks
 
It's in the FSM and sometimes it is stamped on the rotor itself. They will measure the thickness and will let you know if it can be lathed or not and still meet spec.

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We machinists prefer "turned". Lathe works good as a noun, but is not used as a verb.

If the rotor is straight you can stone, file or grind the damage off and the leftover pocket will be just fine. Some people even pay extra for slotting and dimpling rotors.
 
^^^This^^^

IME if the rotor is straight, no wobble, and just light grooves and especially when money is tight I've just slapped new pads on (on my personal vehicle) after some light sanding of the old disc (assuming no major damage). The new pads will wear the high spots down as mentioned above.

But if there's significant pulsation, deep grooves, cracking, heat spots, rust scaling, flaking, pitting, etc, then better to replace IMHO.

Either way, unless you can get your rotors turned for free, the cost to turn them could be half way toward the price of new rotors. Also, experienced Machinists (like PIP) will do it right, the new hire non-machinist running the Brake Lathe now and then may not, IME.
 
PIP said:
We machinists prefer "turned". Lathe works good as a noun, but is not used as a verb.

If the rotor is straight you can stone, file or grind the damage off and the leftover pocket will be just fine. Some people even pay extra for slotting and dimpling rotors.
Click to expand...
It's kidspeak, like "gifted" meaning "I gave you something", or "ask" meaning "I requested this or that"...turning nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns. Makes me cringe.
 
Malleus said:
It's kidspeak, like "gifted" meaning "I gave you something", or "ask" meaning "I requested this or that"...turning nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns. Makes me cringe
Click to expand...

Sigh. This is not English tech. It's 80 tech. Lathed exists. Take it up with the Internet, you're just wasting server space.
 
...must have been too close to the mark.
 
I didn't bring up the usage of the word to be condescending. I only mentioned it because machinists are kind of a technical type of folk. Sometimes it helps to meet folks halfway you know?

Using accepted terminology is a good way to not get turned away. It shows you care a bit.

When I see the word lathed I don't pronounce it like laythe-d. I pronounce it lath-ed, like put wood lathe on walls to cover with plaster. Lathing is putting wood strips on walls to me.

A lathe is a machine for turning. Kind of a deep technical distinction ya know? A lathe turns stuff, the act of using it is turning a part, the guy running one used to be called a turner or a lathe hand, but we don't use those terms much anymore. People are expected to be more versatile than just running a singular type of machine tool today.

Hopefully I added something useful to the discussion, if not, disregard.
 
Not at all PIP, you added something useful, thankyou. It's people like malleus that are annoying when all they can comment is garbage.
i.e. my question had proper English. Saying it's kidspeak when matter of fact it's his lack of education that should make him cringe.
 
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