Acme lead screw handwheel assembly?

Steve68

Steve68

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Aug 20, 2023
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hello,
I'm building a simple carriage, cross slide, and tool post for my wood lathe. Essentially, turning my wood lathe into a metal lathe. I won't be turning metal though. I want to do precision inside and outside diameter turning on wood cylinders.
Anyway, I'm looking for a jack screw assembly with a hand wheel, to hook up to the bedway carriage. Does anybody know where I can find a simple, inexpensive unit? i've check McMaster Carr, eBay, etc... and no luck. Thank you
 
McMaster Carr sells acme threaded rod. You will have to add a hand wheel. The chances of finding such already mated is slim.
DanK
 
I think I need a worm gear that drives another gear with an acme threaded bore. I want the hand wheel to be on the cross slide apron. So, I'd need to convert the rotation of the hand wheel 90 degrees, to rotate the lead screw. Same idea as the hand wheel on a metal lathe. I'm just not sure how to do it. Or, maybe just go with traditional gear track under the bedways.
 
woodchucker said:
why not just look on ebay for a carriage and cross slide?
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I have. I'm retrofitting a standard wood lathe to do a very specific task -- turn wood cylinders up to 15 inches in diameter. So, I need a setup that will position my cutting tool around 8" from the spindle center. I can't afford an old pattern maker lathe at the moment, so I'm going to fab something up myself. I should be able to do it a bit cheaper than retrofitting an existing carriage assembly. I'm a DIY guy at heart!!!
 
I think I'll just fab up a hand wheel to drive a gear on a rack rail. Then in the near future, add a separate powered lead screw with half nut engagement.
 
Steve68 said:
I think I'll just fab up a hand wheel to drive a gear on a rack rail. Then in the near future, add a separate powered lead screw with half nut engagement.
Click to expand...

If you're headed towards power feeding anyhow.... How long is your lathe? Can you reach the tailstock end with reasonable (at least not excessive) effort?. Do you have a plan for the half nuts? If the half nuts in and of themselves are less daunting than the gear system, then it seems skipping the handwheel on the apron, and placing the hand wheel on the right end of the leadscrew would be a dirt simple solution to get you by, and you'd already be set up for the master plan when you apply power to the left hand end of the same leadscrew. You could feed from that handle, and releasing the half nuts would allow you to "fast feed" forward and back just by pushing the thing, since you won't be cutting at that time.

Maybe. I dunno. It's certainly not a modification I've ever tried to do, so...... Just a thought I guess.
 
That would certainly work- worm gearing gets more involved and probably isn't needed for what you are doing
 
Jake M said:
If you're headed towards power feeding anyhow.... How long is your lathe? Can you reach the tailstock end with reasonable (at least not excessive) effort?. Do you have a plan for the half nuts? If the half nuts in and of themselves are less daunting than the gear system, then it seems skipping the handwheel on the apron, and placing the hand wheel on the right end of the leadscrew would be a dirt simple solution to get you by, and you'd already be set up for the master plan when you apply power to the left hand end of the same leadscrew. You could feed from that handle, and releasing the half nuts would allow you to "fast feed" forward and back just by pushing the thing, since you won't be cutting at that time.

Maybe. I dunno. It's certainly not a modification I've ever tried to do, so...... Just a thought I guess.
Click to expand...
He said cross slide not carriage, but now it sounds like moving the carriage. In which case the simplest method is a cable. 2 wraps around a flat pulley on each side, one coming in one going out, with the cable secured at each end of the bed. Will allow traversing for copying.
 
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