Lathe dog question

[ARC-170]

I'm in need of a few lathe dogs for my Atlas Craftsman 101.07403 (12x18). I have a few bent-tail ones, but they are not big enough. Does it matter what brand I get? What about sizes? Should I get them sized as close as possible to whatever I'm turning, or is buying a few that are every 1/2" apart (for example, 1.5", 2", 2.5", etc) just fine? Saw a lot of used Armstrong, Williams and new Chinese imports.

I need to turn a piece of stock from 1.25" to 1.063", in case you have a burning desire to know what I need at the moment, but I thought I'd get a few more while I'm at it.

 

[darkzero]

As far as brand, since I use them infrequently, I ended up just getting imports from Grizzly since they were cheap. Much cheaper than anywhere I could find at the time, I bought every size they had (1/2" to 3"). Made in India IIRC but I've never had a problem with them.

I wanted to buy some older USA name brand ones but they always go for too much money, well more than I want to pay. I did buy one Armstrong but only cause I thought it was unique looking & it didn't cost much. I never really use it though.

 

[ARC-170]

Yeah, Grizzly seems to be the best deal. These don't seem like an item where old American is an advantage, but I could be wrong. Thought I'd ask and see.

The Ebay'ers want top dollar, but some of them have sets of assorted sizes for reasonable prices. I plan to make offers and see what they say.

 

[pontiac428]

Looking for assorted sets of used dogs is probably the best way to go, in terms of quality and economy. The right dog to use is the one that can hold the work. It's also nice to have some low profile dogs for working closer to the headstock, and some clamp style dogs for things that are other than round.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

i often make dogs when i don't have the size i need, its not a brain surgery task.

a simple piece of stock with a bored hole and a bolt to drive and a bolt to tighten to the stock

 

[benmychree]

Clamp dogs will work on nearly any shape work and have a large range of size.

 

[dewbane]

Somebody recently told me that my faceplate wasn't a drive plate on my Grizzly G0602. I ordered a new faceplate, as the original was super janky anyway, and I clamped the original to my mill and went to work. I dedicated one of the slots to dogs, and machined it to the right width to hold the leg on various sizes of the Grizzly dogs I bought. Yee haw, now I gots me a super cool drive plate that fits these here Grizzly dogs. It even says "D R I V E PL AT E" in official looking stampy letters.

Yeah, then I mounted the plate and the drive center, and put a dog on a workpiece. The legs are nowhere remotely close to touching the plate.

I stamped my stampy letters for nothin', and I am still missing the point somehow.

Hey, sorry for hijacking your Atlas/Craftman dog thread. The truth is a scotch turned into four, and I am under the affluence of inkhahol, which has probably had a negative impact on my judgment.

 

[turnitupper]

Need a shorter centre?
John.

 

[pontiac428]

Yeah, ideally the point of the center should be flush with the face of the drive plate. There's no hard rule, it's just that this way conserves stock while guaranteeing the dogs engage the drive slot.

 

[darkzero]

I ran into that problem before. My spindle is MT5 & the lathe came with a MT5 to MT3 adapter. And these adapters for the spindle are shorter & deeper so a typical MT "drill" adapter in the same size usually won't do the same thing. So one day I thought why the need for the adapter, just so you can use the same size center in the spindle & tail stock?

So I bought a MT5 center. I had no idea that this was gonna happen. Stuck out way too far for my drive plate. Ended up selling the MT5 center.