Building a New Lathe

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vtsteam:
Okay back to the lathe. Today I cut out the interfering top bit of the aluminum stepper enclosure, and moved the headstock back to it's furthest aft position. This lined the drive pulleys up properly.

I fitted the rear bearing cover and felt. But I found it was all too tight and it restricted the aluminum spindle spacer from rotating, even though I had tightened up on the spindle nuts to pre-load the spacer against the bearings. The spindle just rotated inside of the spacer.

So I decided to forgo the felt on the rear bearing cover -- I think the cover fits closely enough without it. The spacer and the big adjacent drive pulley will also block swarf, and this is the rear of the headstock anyway. The Minilathes don't have any packing here, so I'm going to call it good without felt. The front bearing cover felt is fine.

Then I made up a flat 3/8" by 1-1/2" flat steel bar to fit across the top of ways inside of the headstock. This is the clamp that will will hold it stationary, along with a flat plate of 1/4" steel that is already there beneath the ways. That one runs the full length and width of the headstock, and served as a slide, while boring for the spindle. The .008" shims used when it was a slide have been removed, so tightening its 4 attachment screws will also clamp the headstock. But in addition I drilled and tapped the new clamp bar 3/8-16 right in the center, and drilled a 3/8" clearance hole in the bottom plate.

To finish clamping the headstock permanently I only needed a 3/8" by 1" bolt. Searching everywhere I could think of I could find NO 3/8 bolts whatsoever. That always seems to happen. 20 minutes of wasted time rummaging through toolboxes, cans full of old fasteners, not to mention the normal bolt storage places. Finally I grabbed a 1" length of 3/8" all-thread, took a grinder to the end and to a 3/8" nut, smeared some flux on it and silver brazed them together to make a bolt. Nothing's stopping me! :zap:

The result-- the headstock is now permanently fixed to the lathe. Covers are done. Spindle turns. Pulleys line up. I think it's probably time to open up the cap one more time and grease the roller bearings -- a task I was avoiding 'til the very end of headstock work.

I dunno -- First I might just split the rear bearing cover like the front one. Otherwise it's a lot more involved removing the cap. If I split it, all I have to do to open up the headstock and inspect or remove the spindle/ bearing, and pulley assembly is loosen the 4 acorn nuts. I like that.

Anyway, this lathe is nearing being dangerous to metal....... :borg:

Neubert1975:
sounds like we allmoast can smell the metal chips from your lathe :beer: :ddb:

vtsteam:
Knock on wood Neubert! It was a bad day for me yesterday! :bang: I should say dumb day. :bang: :bang:

I spent a lot of the day making up a plug gauge out of aluminum. Spoiled the first attempt a couple hours into it. And started on a second. This plug was intended to, on one face, mimic the spindle flange, register, and bolt hole pattern, and on the other face, mimic the receiving end of any chuck, faceplate, etc.

To find the proper hole locations I placed the receiving face on the spindle flange, and transfer punched the hole pattern onto my new plug gauge. Then step drilled it to match.

When finished, I planned to turn it around and place the plug into the recess side of the faceplate, transfer the hole locations, and then drill and tap bolt holes on the faceplate to exactly fit the spindle. That was the idea, anyway.

When after the second try, I had my plug, all step drilled, and even stamped to indicate the three hole pattern and the four hole pattern holes, I felt it was time well spent. It was getting to be evening, and I figured I could now easily complete the faceplate attachment and mount it on the lathe. Uhhhh........no. :wack:

Almost evening, and I'd left my glasses in the house. No problem I could see the transfer punch marks on the faceplate well enough, couldn't I, and heck, the 1/16" starter drill I was using fit well into those punches (which I'd even filed the burrs of of). It will find its center in the divot even if I'm off.

I drilled the three hole pattern with the first drill, then followed with a 1/8" spotting drill, and ..... and ..... and.... wait a minute. One of those three enlarged holes now looks awfully close to the register bore. That's not the same as the others...........whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

No, man, you do need glasses. Freakin dummy!

Well, guess you're going to have to drill the 4 bolt pattern instead, and just re-use one of the good holes.

So I start on that, I've got my glasses after a trip to the house, I've punched more locations and I've got two of those holes done with the 1/16th" drill, working on the third and last when it starts making an odd clicking sound -- maybe I better do another peck, been drilling this one too long and it's jamming up, I bet -- I go to lift it and bit snaps off clean in the hole. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Man why didn't you drip some cutting oil on that spot first???????!!! -- the can is sitting not 6 inches from the drill press. What a mokohead!!!!!

Okay, now what? Shift the whole thing and start again? That really frosts me! I've made a mes of it.

Just stop what you're doing and call it quits for the day. Let it go before you wreck something else. Sleep on it and start again tomorrow.

The plug gauge:

vtsteam:
Okay, so now it's a bright new sunshiney day. And this morning I woke up thinking......is this possible: maybe plug the first hole with steel and re-spot it and try drilling it again for the three hole pattern?

I don't want to use heat (brazing, welding) to fill it with metal -- I don't want to warp that faceplate or register. But what if I plug it with a bit of 1/8" steel rod, and say some JB Weld epoxy? That stuff has done wonders for other problems in the past.

So this morning I hunted up a piece of water hardening 1/8" drill rod -- fully annealed, it just barely scratched the faceplate, so my guess is they are about the same hardness. And some JB Kwik (somewhat faster cure then the standard JB weld.

I cleaned out the hole well with lacquer thinner, and the same for the drill rod, clamped it in the vice and sawed off a small peg. Then I carefully swabbed the hole with epoxy, lightly coated the peg, and drove it home. The top burr prevented it from dropping below the surface (which would have defeated the whole re-drill attempt).

Will this work? I don't know. But we'll try it anyway.

Peg and epoxy:

Peg in place:

vtsteam:
The sun warmed the faceplate quite a bit -- nearly too hot to hold in an hour, so I figured the epoxy was well set -- the bit I had mixed up on the card was pretty hard.

I carefully ground down the peg's top burr with a Dremel tool, and then screwed the plug gauge in place in the faceplate register. I'd drilled and tapped just one of the through holes earlier to serve as a reference point while marking out the other holes.

Then I punched the offset location with the peg repair:

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