Thread: Vacuum chuck question.

Is there a way to set this hand-wheel up for vacuum chucking? Thanks

Originally Posted by William Young

Here is my version of a hand wheel for the models of lathes previously discussed .
As anyone knows that has one of these lathes , there is a 5" square steel plate on the end of the head stock with a 2 5/8" hole in the center of it that has a plastic cover to keep out shavings and sawdust. When removing the 5" square plate it exposes a 4.5" round hole (approx) and the shaft of the lathe with the pulley on the outer end. The pulley has two 8 mm threaded holes in it .
My idea was to make use of those holes as a way to fasten the hand wheel on and also to leave the steel plate off and make a part of my hand wheel fill the 4.5" hole in order to keep shavings out. .
I know some have made some nice versions of the hand wheel using a combination of steel shafts and wood . Some have modified the 5 "x 5" cover plate to make a bigger center hole in it but that is heavy gage steel plate and I didn't want to try to change the size of it. I do not have access to a metal lathe and machine shops charge a lot so I use wood whenever possible .
So this is my version .
I used oak because I had some scraps left over from other jobs . Any good hardwood will work well for this. .
I turned a piece the same diameter as the hole in the end of the lathe with the plate removed and drilled a hole in the center as well a couple holes to put 8 mm (approx 5/16") hex head bolts into. .

I recessed the two holes to allow room for the bolt heads as well as the outer diameter of a socket wrench .

I fastened it to the end of the lathe and tightened it up to make sure I had a good fit.
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Then I took it off and turned a piece of 3" thick oak on the lathe and got it roughly to the shape I wanted for a hand wheel . I left a flange on the bottom that I could drill countersunk holes in to hold that piece to the first piece.
Screwed the two pieces together with 4 screws and mounted the whole assembly on the lathe to true it up and sand and finish.
Here is what it looked like at that stage.

Took it apart and mounted the base plate onto the pulley with the bolts and tightened with a socket wrench . Then screwed the outer piece on with the four screws.
Here are the two parts and the hardware used.
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Here are a couple views of it mounted on the lathe .
The recess in the hole in the center is to accommodate the tapered part of the bearing housing for my Hold Fast vacuum chucking system.