Grizzly 12x37 face plate made

Ryan383

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I couldn't find a faceplate for my old 12x37 anywhere so figured I would start making one. My manual said the spindle was 2 1/2 -8 thread but the major diam measured 2.356" so I decided to just match that with the female threads.
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Nice looking face plate! No doubt it wouldn't be here unless the project was successful, any comment on thread engagement and run out?
Have good day
Ray
 
I have your exact lathe sold by Busy bee (purchased in '81). So hold on you your hat. The spindle is actually a 62 mm X 8 TPI!!! Yes it is! Someone here on the forum (I'm sorry I can't remember who) alerted me to this fact. I hope this helps!!!

I have a friend with the same lathe and he's made a very close mock up of his spindle to work as a go/nogo gauge... He's build several (perhaps 4 or 5) backing plates for it, and they are near perfect!
 
I have seen that even sloppy threads on chuck backing plates will still center up accurately, having said that, I personally make a thread gage for every lathe that I've had over the years, and also try to fit the unthreaded portion of the backplate for a close fit on the spindle.
 
Yeah I just measured and went for it, couldn't have asked for better thread engagement. No tightness and almost zero slop. The bore that it registers on is a little tight, but better that than loose
 
I had a hard time deciding how to hold it so I could bore/thread it. A rotary table on the mill would have been nice but I don't own one. So I plunged the bit in between each gusset and turned it by hand so I had 3 surfaces concentric to the bore, so I could flip and run in the 3 jaw.
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What size weight are you using? I have not found a face plate for my lathe yet and looks like never will.
 
Good work. Your lathe is also identical to my 1985 Shenwai SW 900B.
 
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