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Tiger
18th August 2009, 03:27 PM
One of the guys at the woodturning club that I sometimes visit has a lathe without a camlock to secure the toolrest. He needs to tighten a nut underneath. I use to own the GMC lathe and I think it also came without the camlock. How difficult is it to build a camlock for the toolrest? I may offer to help if it's within my capability but I would have thought that all lathes would come with this facility these days. I don't know how old the above-mentioned club member's lathe is though.

Big Shed
18th August 2009, 05:46 PM
Tiger, most of the smaller metal lathes (7x12 and 9x20) don't have a camlock on the tailstock. There are numerous examples of people that have made a camlock for these lathes, one is on Steve Bedair 9x20 site. Should be able to translate that to a wood lathe tool rest.

Tiger
18th August 2009, 06:06 PM
G'day Fred,

I did see some of the minilathe camlocks. They generally involve a bit of machining. I had hoped for something very simple and basic to make that wouldn't require a lot of time.

Big Shed
18th August 2009, 06:13 PM
I did see some of the minilathe camlocks. They generally involve a bit of machining. I had hoped for something very simple and basic to make that wouldn't require a lot of time.

I don't think you could get away from a bit of machining, at the very least you would have to make an eccentric shaft thingy as that is how camlocks work. Maybe you can pick one up from a "dead" MC900 or other wood lathe?

INVENTOR
18th August 2009, 08:04 PM
You might want to price a banjo as a spare part. eg: Jet lathe or similar. I have before and they are very reasonable. Even the large Vicmarc etc units are very reasonable given their size, quality etc. a bit of a surprise when you think spare parts are often expensive.

new_guy90
18th August 2009, 09:53 PM
making a cam is really dead easy but you need a metal lathe. you can offset it accurately in a 4 jaw chuck or just put a bit of thick packing in one of the jaws of a 3 jaw to offset it the same way .....like i said dead easy a 30min job max :wink:

the only hard part would be modifying the wood lathes banjo but i think you could just get some blocks for the cam to pivot in and a sort of cam rod to lock the plate to the bottom of the bed. you could do this very simply or spend some time to get it all good it is as they say more than one way to skin a cat

thefixer
18th August 2009, 10:02 PM
If you don't have access to a machine lathe you can get two pieces of steel rod of different diameters and drill a hole through the length of the larger one the same diameter as the smaller one but off centre . Then slide the smaller one through the hole and lock it in place either by welding or drilling and inserting lock pins. A thought that just came to mind. It might work.

Cheers
Shorty

Tiger
18th August 2009, 11:55 PM
Thanks guys for your ideas.

Patrick, you make it sound easy. I have access to a metal lathe and could probably come up with an eccentric rod. The second part as you mention is the hard part. I need a fairly simple plan to follow.

Shorty, your solution is creative as usual. Can't see why it would not work.

thefixer
19th August 2009, 12:04 AM
A picture of the banjo and lathe bed would be handy.

Cheers
Shorty

Tiger
19th August 2009, 10:54 AM
G'day again, Shorty. I've only seen the lathe once and it has a very basic design. A little difficult to get a photo, this guy is an invalid pensioner who visits the club infrequently. Some of us were chatting and we thought we could help out a bit and I remembered how inconvenient it was to use a toolrest without a camlock. I might look at the metal lathe tailstock design and see if I can adapt that idea. It has got me thinking though about where else camlocks can be used to speed up certain operations.