My collet set has arrived along with milling cutters so it is time to test out a bit of milling in the lathe, but first I need a draw bar as the one I had made previously proved to be 10mm whereas the collet chuck requires 12mm thread!

Only the finest materials were used such as this skungy old piece of electrical conduit, circa 1930 I would think. In the lathe to turn the rust off!

Never throw anything away! This is a flywheel from a old tape recorder which was reduced to its useful parts a decade or so ago. Nice alloy and easy to tap a 12mm thread into and to turn a shoulder to match the end of the lathe spindle.

Once tapped I could mount it on a bolt and knurl the edge!

The knurled wheel meets the piece of conduit and it is all held in place with a precision pin which I found in the hardware store among others in the nail department!

A bit of threaded steel and another nail at the other end and the drawbar is ready for testing! The rusty conduit looks OK I think!


Here it is in position! The knob is not really very big but it seems big enough to pull the taper into place, I was careful to leave the locking nut on the outside so I can put a spanner on if it ever winds on too tight to loosen by gripping the knob. (no picture of the other end but it just looks like a collet chuck

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