Shop Made Tools

[chucketn]

Stern, how do you attach a chuck to the spindle of your lathe? I tried Googling the model of your lathe to find info on it but got a bunch of unrelated junk (no offense meant). Can you provide a picture?
Chuck

[Stern]

The chuck bolts onto a plate (part of the hollow spindle) using 3 bolts from the back

Here is a pic of a "clone" of the plate I made for my indexer so I could use the lathe chucks on it.



The tree holes are used to bolt into the chuck. Below is a pic of the lathe with the 4 jaw chuck on it (which has a second adaptor plate to change from 4 hole to 3 hole bolt pattern). I think the bore through the spindle is around 1 1/8"



Oh, guess it didnt help I screwed up the model number of the lathe

[chucketn]

Stern, is there any kind of taper in the spindle? You should be able to make a socket for R8 or MT2 or MT3 collets for your head stock. There are plans available for C5, and ER type collet chucks also. If you can copy your spindle nose/flange for your RT, you can make a collet chuck for the collet of your choice!

Chuck

[Stern]

Going to take a closer look at it today, not sure if its tapered but have a feeling its a straight bore. Would be nice to make something up as I did just get an R8 ER-40 collet set for my mill (and I love it, makes things so easy). Going outside soon to check out the new vises I got for the mill (5" precision and a 5" sine vise) and will see exactly what that spindle is.

Edit

Well, checked it out and using an inside caliper it does seem to have a taper best I can tell, but the data on the lathe doesnt say anything other than a 1 1/16" spindle bore ? Going to have to take the chuck off for a better look, and if it does have a taper (looks that way) going to need to figure out what taper it is. Here are the lathe specs listed on a sales site

http://www.machinetoolonline.com/PM1027.html

Thanks again for all the help all

[chucketn]

stern, There is a manual for your lathe here: http://www.busybeetools.com/pages/Manuals.html

The lathe shown in the manual is a different color to yours, but I'm sure it's the same machine, just BusyBee's nomenclature on it.

The manual states the headstock has a Morris Taper #4, and the Tailstock is a Morris Taper #2.
You could turn both of these tapers on the lathe.

Chuck

[Stern]

stern, There is a manual for your lathe here: http://www.busybeetools.com/pages/Manuals.html

The lathe shown in the manual is a different color to yours, but I'm sure it's the same machine, just BusyBee's nomenclature on it.

The manual states the headstock has a Morris Taper #4, and the Tailstock is a Morris Taper #2.
You could turn both of these tapers on the lathe.

Chuck

Thanks for the link, checked out the manual for the one closest to mine, sure looks like they were made the same (at least related lol). Going to pull the chuck today if I get time and validate the bore, and if it is tapered figure out what it is (probably MT4 as the other manual states). I guess then all I would need to do is get a MT4 (if thats the size) "something" and turn it into a ER-40 collet holder (guess I need a draw bar too)

[EVguru]

http://www.ctctools.biz/servlet/the-41/ER40-MT4-MK4-COLLET/Detail

[Thatcher]

made a boring bar attachment for my little atlas. but to be honest i had the power switch crap out on me at the end and i havent used it yet.

http://thatcherworks.blogspot.com/2013/08/boring-bar-lathe-attachment.html

[Thatcher]

first project was an 1 1/8 tubing block and it came out pretty good. i also made the boring bar chunk hold an old planer blade to use as a cut off.

http://thatcherworks.blogspot.com/2013/08/1-18-tubing-block.html

[gandalf]

Scraped Shop-made Square

One Friday evening, in the middle of a project, I realized that I needed an accurate square at least 10" long. The longest I had was 7". Rather than ordering one, which would not have arrived until the middle of the following week and would have been rather pricey, I decided to make it.

It needed to be accurate but could be quite thin, so I started with an 8"x12" rafter square. Why not? The local hardware store, which was open on Saturday, had one, it was certainly affordable, and it was square. Kind of. All it would need was a bit of filing to bring it in the ballpark, and some careful scraping. I first scraped the outside of the long arm, marking it against a 9x12 surface plate. Then I did the short arm, checking for squareness against a cylindrical square by sighting the gap carefully, with a small light table placed vertically behind the surface plate. In the final passes, for best accuracy I used two cigarette paper shims at the ends, checking for any difference in friction between them. And in case you are wondering, the reason I used the cylindrical square was that it would stand up on the surface plate nicely by itself <g>, but any sufficiently accurate conventional square would have done just as well.



Although the square was only 2mm thick, I did most of the scraping with a normal 3/4" wide and 3" radius scraper, holding it at about 10* less than usual, and making the strokes on the light side, with successive passes about 60* to each other, as usual. The main thing to watch for was to not tilt the scraper and to use the middle of the cutting edge only, so as to avoid rounding the edges of the 2mm wide working surfaces.

Toward the end, in order to get the largish number of spots per inch I wanted, I switched to a small scraper, 1/4" wide with a 1" radius, holding it at about 20* to 15*, and making small and light strokes. I used the "cross-stitch" pattern shown, for appearance and because it would show well any wear that might occur in use over time.



That gave me what I needed for my project, but while I was at it I also scraped the inner side of the arms, measuring with a micrometer reading .001mm, to make them parallel to the outside. It also considered giving it some coats of paint, but I decided to forgo that so I could use it right away.

I started on Saturday morning, and working "part time" I had it finished Sunday afternoon, with a total investment of $3.95. I checked it again for squareness after several months, in case there had been movement of the material, but there wasn't any.

This project is one of the examples at http://metalscraping.com, from a CD that teaches how to scrape, from the basics, to advanced topics like scraping hardened steel, pinpointing, or marking with pigments.

[keys]

I've got my CNC mill drill in a usable state and decided it's time to dive into learning new software. I decided a speed handle for my 5 inch vise would be a good starter project.



To make it more usable I'd either make the brass handle longer or allow it to freely rotate.

[Stern]

Got some time to make some mounting brackets for the new vise. Grabbed some scrap 1" plate bits and milled them down (which was a bit of a pain as the crap vise I have now likes to lift the work when the jaws close). The new one may not be a big CNC vise, but hell its 5 times heavier than the one Im stuck using so defiantly and improvement.





Now I just have to make some T-nuts to fit the table, as the 1/2" set I have a re a bit too big.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

Over on the The Hobby-Machinist forum, a link to this YouTube video was posted, and at 27:54 there is a simple tilt table being used. Several Hobby Machinists posted their versions of this table, and here is mine.

My plate is 3/4" aluminum, 6" x 8.5", tapped 1/4-20 holes 1.25" OC and 0.2505" reamed holes, also 1.25" OC, offset from the other holes. The large roll is 2.725" in diameter. I also added an additional adjustment roll. It is movable in 1.25" increments.

[Deus Machina]

Harvey, I think I need one of those. Very much. <3

Thatcher, I agree with VPT. Done that a couple times myself. If I was worried about clamping force, I put a strip or two of a cut-up Coke can between, as spacers.

[Thatcher]

thanks! i will totally do that for the next ones. iv been making a lot of aluminum shavings since i made the boring bar and cut off and am pretty much just learning as i go. should i drill and tap? or drill through so i can bolt them down to a plate?