Thread: Lathes and vintage automobiles

J&H,
I notice there's a chip guard on your lathe. Do you use it, or is it a PITA? The reason I ask is I've been thinking of making one for my Hercus, but I wonder whether it would be more of a hindrance than a help.
Chris

Originally Posted by Jekyll and Hyde

A couple of weeks ago I fairly often need to make a small steel piece

I thought there might be some eccentric person here.

...or whole motorbike.

This is the frame for my custom motorbike that I built myself. The rear axle plates engine mounts and neck tube were all done on the lathe...most of the tube notching was done on my mill but the bracing could easily have been done on the lathe. The wheel spacers and bushes were made on the lathe too.

My lathe was also used often to make the frame jig to hold all this stuff together for tack welding, and the tube bender which I built to bend all the tube up.

The projects a long way from finished, and before it is I am certain the lathe will be used at least a couple times more.

The bloke who invented the lathe deserves a medal. Its a wonderful piece of gear!

Brendan

Originally Posted by jack620

J&H,
I notice there's a chip guard on your lathe. Do you use it, or is it a PITA? The reason I ask is I've been thinking of making one for my Hercus, but I wonder whether it would be more of a hindrance than a help.
Chris

I presume you mean the yellow chuck guard? It's fitted from the factory on my AL335, and has an interlock on the end, which prevents the machine from being started without it being down. Don't really find it annoying, I suppose I'm just used to it, although I do find it gets in the line of sight sometimes (can't remember when though, for some reason).

It does next to nothing to contain chips or coolant though, as it only covers the top of the body of the chuck. About the only thing it is really useful for (unless you're absent minded with respect to removing the chuck key) is for mounting a splash shield to - I have a square of Lexan that I bolt to it when I expect to be running a lot of coolant, and that shield successfully removes the need for a raincoat to keep coolant being flung straight off the chuck onto me. I seem to find that coolant runs straight along the workpiece into the chuck, and then gets flung out, while the chips come off at the tool and sail happily through the gap between toolpost and chuck.

The Lexan also stops a reasonable amount of chips, I guess, but a lot still seem to escape, and if I'm turning a fairly large diameter piece I can't use it as the toolpost hits it. If you aren't running coolant, I would suggest not bothering with putting one on... I do have an idea on a different approach to keep the little buggers off the floor... I intend at some stage to make a Lexan screen that clamps onto my compound slide from the top, and runs between the toolpost and me. Since that will be directly behind the cutting tool, and will extend towards the chuck, I think it should bounce pretty much all the chips back into the tray, and you can get away with making it a bit smaller... It also hopefully won't interfere with anything else when turning closer to the chuck....

Ben.

Originally Posted by Jekyll and Hyde

although I do find it gets in the line of sight sometimes (can't remember when though, for some reason).

Hi Ben,
Turning between centres or faceplate work maybe? or even a collet chuch if you have one?

Stuart

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Hi Ben,
Turning between centres or faceplate work maybe? or even a collet chuch if you have one?

Stuart

Hi Stuart,

Definitely none of the above, I've not done any of those, although it would definitely be in the way then...

Still can't remember specifics of when it's happened, but either way, it's more of a minor annoyance than anything else. I can still usually see what I'm doing, just not quite on the angle I'd like to look from...

Ben.