Carriage Stop

This is another project that has been on the to do list for quite awhile now. I’ve been needing a ~~slitting saw~~ lathe carriage stop every since I bought my first lathe and have managed to put it off by using a mag base. It was time to make a proper carriage / indicator stop for the Standard Modern 12″ Utilathe. I designed up the stop so that you didn’t have to be constantly reaching for tools to adjust it – all the items that need to be adjusted regularly have integrated handles. I’m using a 2″ indicator.

As Max Phillips would say I kinda went all watchmaker on it. I didn’t intend to get this carried away but as I was working on this project I questioned myself as to why (as a society) we seem to always want to rush though things just to get them done. Isn’t the journey where all the enjoyment comes from? Isn’t it enjoyable and satisfying to create things that you are pleased with?

Deep within all of us is a need to be creative and make things (both tangible and not) to the best of our ability. We are not robots. This not a spiritual blog but I am a reformed Christian and I believe that every single human being is created Imago Dei (in the image of God). God creates and since we are made in His image we also create.

Back to our project. I roughed out the lathe bed profile on the bandsaw:

and finished that portion up on the shaper:

The rest of the project was simple lathe and mill work.

This was made specifically for the Standard Modern 12″ Utilathe. The drawings that I made up reflect that particular lathe. But it should be very straight forward to adjust the drawings for your lathe if you wish. If anyone wants the solid model send me an email and I will get the data to you somehow.

Also I’m considering a run of 5-10 or so of each of the tools I make for myself to sell for others. If you want to purchase one of these stay tuned – I will update the store portion of the blog to reflect that.

Here is the drawing – Carriage Stop – Rev 01.

If you are interested here is the build video:

Shop Made Quick Change Toolpost

A few weeks ago now I finished a quick change toolpost for the Schaublin.

The design is based on Andy Lofquist’s MLA-23 toolpost. Andy is the man behind the wonderful Metal Lathe Accessories kits (http://www.statecollegecentral.com/metallathe/). While I’ve never ordered any kits from Andy, I’m told that they are very high quality and are exceptionally thought out.

After quickly considering a Tripan toolpost and changing my mind after I saw the prices on those I ordered a set of drawings for the MLA-23 toolpost. The original design is for 9″-12″ swing lathes. The Schaublin is an 8″ swing lathe. After drawing up the original toolpost in Fusion and drawing up the Schaublin cross slide it was evident that it was too big. I decided to design a scaled down version, making some changes along the way.

The largest change is in the dovetail size and the shape of the body itself. I wanted something that would match the Schaublin’s size, but also look, so I manufactured the body out of round material instead of square. The toolpost is optimized for 1/4″ HSS tools, but 5/16″ will fit.

The internal workings are that of the MLA-23 toolpost. The design is exceptionally rigid and works very well. It is also a wonderfully simple in design. Part of the reason I really like this design is for its simplicity. I believe the best design is one that doesn’t allow you to take anything away. This design, in my opinion, is one of those designs.

Some people don’t like that the toolpost doesn’t repeat in angle position – that is once you loosen the locking handle you completely loose the rotational position of the toolpost. This is a downfall of the design if you truly need rotational position repeatability. When I work in the shop I’m constantly moving the toolpost around to allow for tool clearance. So much so that I made a handle for my Aloris clone on my 10×18 lathe a number of months ago. I do have provisions in the design to allow for graduations on the base to allow for visual rotational positioning. We’ll see if I add it.

The build was interesting and fun. I learned a number of things along the way including how to cut dovetails on the shaper. It took a bit of time, but it reaffirmed the very useful nature of having a shaper in the shop. Instead of waiting for a dovetail cutter I could grind up a simple tool and cut nice dovetails, at any angle, and get a super finish. I’m told you can build the entire toolpost with a lathe, but there is a fair bit of milling work so even a mini mill would be a huge help.

Since the design borrows heavily from Andy’s design I don’t want to release drawings. What I’m planning on doing is forwarding a set of drawings to Andy to include with his prints if he is interested. So if you want to build the smaller version, which is a perfect size for the mini lathe, send me an email and I’ll try to get you a set of drawings.

I made a build video of the entire toolpost in montage style format as well.

Height Gauge Depth Arm

In the shop I have a 2 beam dial height gauge that I use a lot for measuring and general layout work. As far as measuring equipment, it is my favourite tool to use, even though I would want a micrometer and a caliper before a height gauge. Once you get one you’ll wonder how you got by without one.

Most height gauges come with a tool for measuring flat surfaces, and for scribing. To get the most out of the gauge you need a depth arm – basically a pin in an arm, for measuring depths. I needed one to measure up a motor face so I can get a 3 phase motor mounted on my lathe – one of those projects to complete a project sort of deals. I decided to make one up instead of buying it:

I made most of the arm on the shaper and used a gift from Max over at the Joy of Precision to bore the hole for the pin. The boring head Max made is the star of this show. It is the perfect size for the mini mill. It is one of the best designs for a small boring head I’ve seen, and used. The adjusting dial is a tad small but once you get a feel for it adjusting it is easy. It’s also great because you can bore small holes – saving you from buying a lot of reamers.

The pin was turned between centers and was within .0004″ over the length – something I was very happy with. The deviation was in the centre of the pin. The pin sprung between centres a bit when I was cutting – aside from using a traveling steady there isn’t much you can do here about that. The beginning diameter and end diameter were essentially the same within .0001. I probably didn’t need that much precision but I wanted to dial in my tailstock anyway. At the end of the pin you can screw in standard dial indicator ends using a #4-48 thread.

I made the screw out of brass because it looks nice, and doesn’t mar the pin. I usually don’t turn that much brass so I was reminded how easy it is to work with.

Here is the drawing for the height gauge arm. I will be sharing all the projects in Fusion at some point and I’ll post a link.

Height Gauge Arm (Revision 01)

If you are looking to get a height gauge, do yourself a favor and go a dial one instead of a digital one. Even though the dial on mine is graduated to .001″, you can actually measure much closer in the home shop with it. Notice I didn’t say in the shop – in a professional environment I get that you need hard numbers and ‘guessing’ at the measurement is very poor practice. Verniers are also good but I find them slow – probably because I don’t have enough practice.

Every tool was used

I’ve been very busy lately outside of the shop on coursework so I haven’t had a lot of time in the shop this week. I’ve managed to get some time in the shop making 4 more brackets for my friend’s Audi S4 antics:

s4brackets

The brackets are made out of 1018 cold rolled steel. What I really liked about this project is everyone of my powered machine tools (bandsaw, shaper, lathe, mill, belt sander, bench grinder!) was used. The method went something like this:

Cut to size on the bandsaw
Face and machine to thickness on the shaper
Square up on the mill
Drill the holes and start tapping on the mill (finish up by hand)
Cut the large radius in the lathe using a face plate setup (I used a hacksaw first to remove most of the material!)
Cut the outside profile on the bandsaw
Add the profile radii on the belt sander
And of course, sharpening all the tools on the bench grinder and / or belt sander

It was the first job I really put my newly acquired 7″ Ammco Shaper to work.

ammcoshaper

The shaper worked great, and it was really nice to just let the little machine work away while I was drilling on the mill. Would I trade my mill for a shaper? No, probably not, but the little shaper is a pretty useful tool. It did a very good job on finishing the 1018, which can be really gummy at times with poor chip control. I used a 1/4 HSS turning tool with a small stepper over for roughing and finishing. Roughing used a depth of cut of about .020″, which I though was fairly respectable given the 1/3 hp motor powering the little shaper. I’ll be posting some more details on the HSS tool geometry I used soon.