I was hunting around to find a board to make a pattern for a faceplate. I figured maybe 8" diameter would be right. But I couldn't find anything suitable around the house, so I checked my bigger shop/household storage shed, and spied the faceplate I'd once bought for the Craftsman lathe. It looked about 8". Turned out to be 8-1/2".
Now this faceplate had been one of my worst Ebay purchases. In fact I had never used it once. I like faceplate work, but this particular one had been a great disappointment. It had a huge honkin' hub on the back of it, and very short slots. If you tried to bolt most anything useful to it, the hub was in the way. Not only that, but even if you could get the bolt in the slot, and the piece to be turned, the bolt head would often hit the hub. There was probably only one inch of useful range for those slots.
I had LOTS of faceplate accessories, built for my Gingery lathe, and 3 faceplates I'd cast for it. None of the accessories would work with this new faceplate. So it sat for 10 years, unused.
I started looking at it and thinking, could I use this with the new lathe, and maybe cut off that hub entirely?
![](http://sredmond.com/vtsteam/Lathe/FacePlate1.jpg)