Thread: the making of an indexing system for the mini wood lathe

Excellent presentation, and a good demonstration of your metal/plastic working skills. It is not often that I see reference to "glass paper" rather than sandpaper, brought me back to my school woodworking classes. Great to see that you have tried and had success with a new plastic, I have also had difficulties with working acrylic- not to mention the smell. Finally how do you keep your shop so neat?

Yep, the Yanks laugh at me when I accidently say glasspaper, a hangover from my school days, ions ago, in fact I only use Silicon Carbide paper costing more than a dollar a sheet. I appreciate your kind comments and as for the cleanliness of my shed, well that varies greatly from week to week depending on the projects underway at the time, but if it gets too bad my mind tends to close down and I have to spend a day cleaning up especially if I've been working with Jarrah.

Harry a work of art
Ggreat you have all the gear to do so much. Only thing I would have done different is not thread the index plate but make it slide on/off and tightened up between chuck and face/shoulder if possible. Although slip can happen.

Ah my friend, if only it would have been that easy. this shot shows why I had to cut the thread, the 9mm gap from where the thread ends! In hindsight I suppose that I could have filled the gap with "Knead it" then turned it level with the threads and this in fact could well be the answer for anyone wanting to make one, the 30mm hole could easily be routed before the outside diameter. A well equipped workshop doesn't happen overnight, for most of us it takes almost a lifetime. It really is nice to combine metal with woodworking, it makes most jobs possible and that gives a great deal of satisfaction. I appreciate your kind words.

Harry the aluminium ones the OTGA produce are only 6mm thick and slide on over the shoulder but they have a screw hole which needs to be drilled into the shoulder of the flat of the shaft some use countersink selftappers others spend the time and tap the hole. Then the chuck is placed on and tightened against it.

Yes it has taken me years also to accumulate what little I have, I still dream of a metal lathe n mill but its only a dream no room no $$$$.

Ray

Harry! Harry! Harry!!!!!
There is no grass growing in your shadow. At an age when a lot of blokes would have "given up" here you are "inventing" and doing Computer presentations to the world!
Your work is first rate as well as the execution. I do hate you though because you can get such a good finish off a tool with your metal lathe.
I hope I still "have it" as you do, when I am as old as you. How big is your list of projects? I have a mate who retired last year (65 years) who will have to be at least 156 when he dies, to be able to scratch the surface of his project lists.

You're very kind Rod.,for a really good finish I generally stop turning about 0.1 0r 0.2 mm oversize and then use 400 grade wet or dry paper with a drop of oil followed by 1200 grade with metal polish. I've never had the opportunity to watch how the pros achieve a high degree of finish. As for how many projects I've completed, impossible to count, probably many hundreds over close to sixty years and probably dozens in the last four or so years since I joined a forum and started to photograph the ones that I thought might be of interest to members.
Get your friend to join a forum because this gives an incentive to make things for a show and tell and then hopefully produce photo-shoots, something that I learned to do form asking questions, lots of questions on a forum. The first thing I asked was how to add text to the photographs, and the consensus was to use the FREE download "Paint.com" this being easier than "Paint" which is part of windows