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Thread: Making a Faceplate Lathe
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15th March 2015, 05:10 PM #1
Making a Faceplate Lathe
I did this faceplate build a while back , I don't think I ever posted it on this forum , I did post on a couple of others though.
It started of with me spotting this old Sparrow sanding disc ? if that's its correct name , on ebay . It didn't sell with a price of $50 from memory, but I made contact with the seller and was happy with what I saw when I went and looked at it ,To his surprise I offered him $70 and made a friend . He was a giant of a Biker type bloke who had a whole yard of collected gear of all sorts . He showed me around the rest of his collection and it was interesting stuff .
I took the Sparrow back to work and it was not about to spin , I gave the Babbit bearings a clean up and when it did turn I found I had a good 1/2 inch wobble in the disk . I'm thinking DAM and I gave him an extra $ 20 lol .
I reckon at some stage someone threw it out as rubbish of the back of a truck and it bent the shaft just behind the cast disc.It had a broken foot as well.
I have a friendly engineer who I gave it to and he turned and fitted a new shaft for it , the bearings were scraped and with a squirt of grease now and then she goes well.
Rob
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15th March 2015, 05:33 PM #2
I then had to raise what I had up to a suitable working height , be able to bolt it down and fit a motor at the back for the belt drive.
I welded up steel reinforcing so that it could also hold 14 threads that stick out of the cured block at precise points. This took a bit of work to get right !! there are the 6 for the Cast iron Sparrow that had to be spot on , 4 for the motor mount and four out the front for holding on tool rests and a hook at the back for when I have to move it . We also made up form work which was leftovers from a large french provincial Style TV cabinet that Had come in for being reduced in size , some of the moulded corners in that were there to be used for nothing . That gives the formwork a complex looking contruction that wouldnt normally be done. When the concrete was poured we used a small air powered jack hammer as a vibrator on the sides of the form . lots of bubbles came to the top doing that . Cracking it open the next day was good fun
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15th March 2015, 05:44 PM #3
Once the Sparrow was bolted on I found out it needed some bracing , so the sturdy X brace was made and bolted in. we layed a small level pad to put it on and moved it to that and screwed it down with a fine sand and cement film in between. Its as solid as Ayers Rock.
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15th March 2015, 06:15 PM #4
The VFD is mounted on the wall I have a dust collection system that works with it as well ,and the diameter of the plywood is 800 mm . The center is about 1100 off the ground so in theory I could spin 2.1M I don't think that will ever happen.
There are a few more pictures of form work and jigs that were made for holding threads in place for welding.
The table out front of the lathe is a Wolfenden chisel or chain mortiser base fitted to a base with a way we made so the base can be wound in or out . The table top can also be moved in or out and left and right , and the whole lot can go up or down . This is just for machining radius dishes , a guitar Makers tool, with another machine that rolls from left to right on the table . it will also allow machining with a router as a work piece spins .That could be good for dished table tops .
That whole table set up can be taken off , and the next step is for a tool rest for free hand turning
Rob
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16th March 2015, 01:48 PM #5New Member
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Lovely work.
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16th March 2015, 08:12 PM #6
That's fantastic lots of great ideas
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16th March 2015, 09:18 PM #7
Rob,
when you make something like a functional tool, and add that extra flair, it adds a whole other dimension to the thing.
It's a treat to look back at the pictures of the making.
Great effort.
Cheers,
Peter<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <woNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]-->
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16th March 2015, 09:32 PM #8GOLD MEMBER
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That'll make some nice big lazy susans, I'm sure you'll be able to sell some to the Chinese Restaurants
Nice work by the way. Love the fancy form work
Kryn
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17th March 2015, 10:02 AM #9Senior Member
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Rob - I really like the use of concrete for the base, and some nice design details too. Very well done.
There was a post recently (can't remember which forum) about setting up small metalworking bench lathes for maximum precision, that cited a wartime reference, where a steel and concrete base was recommended.
I doubt that a Sparrow with such a ball and chain will take flight any time soon !!
Regards,
John
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17th March 2015, 11:53 AM #10GOLD MEMBER
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Very impressive.
Do you need to worry about the motor filling with dust?
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17th March 2015, 06:23 PM #11
Im happy your all enjoying the view Gents Thanks .
I have even been coming back for second and third looks , the images have been in storage a while and I hadn't really studied them for a while. This much building took three years . we would work away on the woodwork and every few months do three or four days on the lathe . Me and two other guys at times. The whole thing will get a coat of Black paint one day . Im pretty sure Ill do it Flat acrylic Black . I intend to Guard the belts at the back .
Another possibility I may do with it is mount a second motor . I scored the same type of old motor as the one on there which has a reduction gear box fitted , it does about 40 to 1 rpm and was used to drive an old Organ out on stage at the Brighton theater in the old days for intermission playing to the audience , I was told that by the seller . the 40 to 1 would be good for machining with the router.
Lazy susans ?? LOL
Dust in the motor is not a worry so far. when Im doing MDF dishes the dust sucker takes 98% of it to the bag , its very efficient . It sucks just behind the cutter . Mdf as you probably know is very messy stuff , a little build up happens when I do lots of them . Its the sanding at the end that causes it . Im wearing a mask and have the fan going strong as well. Its under a lean to out back which makes it OK when the weather is nice.
Rob
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19th March 2015, 10:31 PM #12
A lot of thought going into this build, Rob. I'm guessing there's been quite a bit of satisfaction also?
WayneDon't Just Do It.... Do It HardenFast!!
Regards - Wayne
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22nd March 2015, 05:53 PM #13
Yes Wayne, I did get some Satisfaction doing this . There is more to do though , a few more stages to go .
Here is a video I took when I first got it running.
Rob
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23rd March 2015, 08:42 AM #14Senior Member
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Great video Rob -thanks for taking the time to post it
I really like the old GE motors, and the mounting / tensioning arrangement you've designed (bars on edge, pivoted on a shaft) looks great. The weight of the motor I'm sure provides plenty of gravity assistance in establishing initial tension!! I had wondered about the compatibility (high freq., insulation etc) between these old GE's and VFD's (and you've got a gold plated VFD there in the SEW), but looks like it works really well.
There's a lot to like in this build. Design, proportion, materials and execution.
Regards
John.
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23rd March 2015, 08:39 PM #15
Thanks John .
Yeah I like the old motors . I got that one out of a bin at a high school My mate was working on . It ran the air conditioning fan . I was kicking myself that I didn't grab the fan as well for a while. It was a big long squirrel cage one and I let it go .
I was planing on a way to tighten the tension for the belt , there is only one on it in the pic but I have two on now . Gravity does the job though and I don't know if I need to tighten it . I wonder If it's safer for me and the machine that way , having them loose ? I once jammed up my Goldie copy lathe and if it wasn't for the belts slipping the machine would have broken some gears.
Rob
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