First real parts!

n9viw

n9viw

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Dec 25, 2023
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I've been tinkering and collecting tooling and parts for this old 1942 SB Heavy 10 (the 10R, cat.199-Y), and using the Grizzly 14x48 here at work, I finally made some parts to get stuff done at home.

First is a back plate, to go with the "chinesium" 3-jaw chuck I received courtesy of @Nesse1 . It's ugly for now, but I'll soon carve it into a more reasonable semblance of round. I'm sorry I didn't take any pics of the nut before I pressed it into the plate, but it came from McMaster-Carr at almost 1.5" thick! I used the lathe at work to part it off to 1.25", faced it, cut a register on the original side, and then turned 1" of it down to 2.25".

I chucked the round-esque slab of 1x8" HRS in the 3-jaw and center-drilled and bored it to match (a couple thousands undersize), and used the hydraulic press to put the two together. I need to work on my shoulder turn transition, as you can see a slight gap between the nut shoulder and the plate in the second pic. I did also weld the face side of it, but I don't have a good pic of that.

BP1.jpgBP2.jpgBP3.jpgBP4.jpg

I really need to face and turn this in the SB, so it's correct to my specs, but my toolpost is broken! What to do? Go back to work!

(The lantern toolpost I got on ebay came with a crack in the base I didn't see, which finally gave up the ghost while trying to work on the nut that goes to that backplate above, which is why I finished it at work. Couldn't figure why my tool holder kept backing out! Apparently, this is a common problem due to monkey-fisted operators, I've seen a lot of them on ebay with bowed or already-cracked bases.)

In order to be able to turn that backplate at home, I made a new toolpost base. And if I need to make another one, I have another 4 or 5 inches of stock to carve up! I'll upgrade to a turret or AXA eventually, but for now the lantern suits me fine.

TPC1.jpgTPC2.jpgTPC3.jpgTPC4.jpg

So now I can put tool to faceplate and make a mess in the basement. Once the plate is turned and the chuck mounted, my next project is taking a chunk of cutoff plastic bushing material from work and practice internal and external threading, so I can eventually make a "real" backplate. I also rescued some cutoffs of keyway shafting from work, which I plan to use to make a replacement gib screw for the crossfeed- some PO took it out and must have lost it, and replaced it with a SHCS and washer, which doesn't capture the gib well at all.

Oh! And somewhere in all this, I also plan to finally do my 12" bar and two-collar tests... <rolleyes>
 
n9viw,
Enjoyed your write up.
Unique approach and good example of using budget materials to get the job done on the backing plate!
Looking forward to seeing how it all works out.
 
@DeadGuyAle , the back plate was a solution borne of frustration. The 1-7/8"-8 spindle nose pitch as a standard is as dead as last week's cabbage, and plates and accessories for it are as unobtanium as any of the rest of the 10L/R parts. I occasionally see chucks with backing plates going for $500 on up, or dog plates, and CDCOTools.com has a 5C collet chuck with semi-finished backing plate in that pitch, but not with their 3-jaw, nor do they sell the backing plate by itself.

I am well aware that blank plates exist, as well as cast iron round slabs, but a) having no chuck at home, if I didn't have access to a lathe at work I couldn't thread it, and b) I've never threaded before, so I didn't want to spend $30-50 on a plate or slab and bugger it up. I found the nuts at McMaster through a random web search for that thread pitch, and concocted the solution over time. Originally I was just going to butt-weld the nuts to the plates, but worried that the torque (and overhang) would eventually cause it to fail, so I devised the bore and fit job. I could have done the nut work at home, but the breakage of the toolpost hamstrung me. At that point, I managed to secure approval to use the tooling at work, which helped a lot.

All this jiggery-pokery goes hand-in-hand with the lathe itself. It's as swaybacked as an old mare, possibly beyond recovery due to years or decades of neglect (look for my first post to see a pic of the , and may not even have enough extra material left to be able to be planed or ground back into shape. In keeping with my limited budget and the extremely low price I paid for the lathe, I'm keeping all my purchases to a minimum not only to keep it on the cheap, but to teach myself to be creative as well as frugal with my solutions.
 
n9viw said:
All this jiggery-pokery goes hand-in-hand with the lathe itself. It's as swaybacked as an old mare, possibly beyond recovery due to years or decades of neglect (look for my first post to see a pic of the , and may not even have enough extra material left to be able to be planed or ground back into shape. In keeping with my limited budget and the extremely low price I paid for the lathe, I'm keeping all my purchases to a minimum not only to keep it on the cheap, but to teach myself to be creative as well as frugal with my solutions.
Click to expand...

I find myself in this situation often. One project begets another. You kind of have to take on one thing, to make another thing, to finish the other thing, to do what you just wanted to do in the first place. Sometimes you just want stuff done, but if you let your brain relax, often the journey can be better than the destination. I like your approach.
 
WobblyHand said:
This was my initial thought as well.
If I understand correctly, the OP doesn't have a chuck to hold a back plate. And doesn't yet know how to single point thread.
Click to expand...
Turned the nut down, so has access to something.
Learning to thread is a side benefit......
 
Yes, I have access to something, but while I have been getting stuff done on the sly at work, I don't want to push it. Without a chuck at home, I'm pretty much dead in the water. I've already done this plate. Once I finish it (AT HOME) and have the chuck mounted, I can do more at home, and less at work.

And yes, threading will be good, as is that price, but as I have literally NEVER threaded anything, that's still an expensive mistake. And no, I have no work holding yet. I'm this close, I'm not going to bollocks it up by scrapping what I've already made to try something else that may or may not work depending on the quality (or lack) of my work.
 
Jake M said:
I find myself in this situation often. One project begets another. You kind of have to take on one thing, to make another thing, to finish the other thing, to do what you just wanted to do in the first place. Sometimes you just want stuff done, but if you let your brain relax, often the journey can be better than the destination. I like your approach.
Click to expand...

Quinn referenced a term I remember from my college days, particularly with programmers: "Yak Shaving." You have to fix this thing so you can have something to fix the other thing, which will also be used to fix this other other thing... it snowballs.
 
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