# Lathe Face Plate



## SBWHART (Feb 9, 2010)

The face plate that came with my lathe is a huge 11" diameter, which is way too big for my needs, and the clampimg slots are to my mind not in a very convenient position.

Dave Bluechip gave us some 7" dia steel discs just the job for a face plate.

In my big for jaw chuck, face up, then bore for a nice neat fit on 72mm dia chuck register and a 20mm register for my rotary tabe, and tap the centre M10







Over onto the mill and using the PCD function drill and tap M8 for clamp screws.
No pics

But this is a pic of the back showing the registers along with a M2 morse taper with a 20mm dia at the end this will fit in the RT with the 20mm protruding out the face plate will fit on this and be clamped to the table with three m6 cap screws that will fit through the M8 threads drilled into the face plate.

Hope that made sence







Then back onto the lathe for facing up and skiming the OD and putting guide rings every 10mm I also took the oportunity to put a nice 60deg chamfer into the mouth of the centre thread so that I can use a centre in the mill to get it onto the quill centre line.






This is it on my RT, it converts My RT from a 5" to a 7" and I can now transfer the face plate from the lathe with the job still in place over to my RT without losing concentricity and having the pain of clocking things up







I can alos put it on my RT using my chuck Rt adaptor plate.






OR indexer






This is it with my big plate






I Havn't drilled the clamp holes in it yet as I want to get a Keats angle plate and a Myford style angle plate, and a want to get the holes positioned in the most convenient place.

Her it is with a small vice I want to be able to use on it and a small angle plate.











This face plate will be interchangeable with the rest of my tooling and will allow me to use a range of fixtures on it.

Have fun

Stew


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## gbritnell (Feb 9, 2010)

Very nice job on the faceplate Stew. As you have shown it will have multiple uses. The large face plates that come with the lathes aren't really meant for the small work that we do.
gbritnell


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## tel (Feb 9, 2010)

Yep, a nice one Stew, now make the next size down!

One of the handiest things I've made is this little 3" jobby.


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## Deanofid (Feb 9, 2010)

That came out really nice, Stew. A much more manageable size than that monster masher they sent you!

I think there are a few of us trying to get everything in our shop to fit everything else. It seems to be the way things should be done. Interchangeability! Versatility!

As always, thanks for the write-up.

Dean


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## Maryak (Feb 10, 2010)

tel  said:
			
		

> Yep, a nice one Stew



Me too.

Best Regards
Bob


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## SBWHART (Feb 10, 2010)

Thanks Chaps

Tel:- now thats not a bad idea, next size down, I'll start looking around for a bit of material.

Have fun

Stew


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## Blogwitch (Feb 10, 2010)

Very nice indeed Stew. I don't think there are many of those plates left now, they were a very nice donation, served us well.

Stew and myself seem to help each other out in this direction, as we only live a short walk apart. Coming up with new interchangeable bits ideas soon has us both scrambling for more lumps of metal. I don't know about Stew, but it has more than halved my setup times and it is a joy just to unscrew the job off one machine and screw it onto the other, ready to be worked on straight away.

Because my lathe is a D1-4 mount, it was a little more difficult to mount things, so I made a Myford adapter for the nose. Since I did that, it got a lot easier for me, as I can just buy a cheapo ready made backplates for doing things like this. I can hardly buy the metal any cheaper than a ready made backplate costs me.






This one uses equi spaced holes (42 of them, drilled and tapped 4mm) and tiny swan necked clamps.

I think, and I am sure Stew will back me up on this, that even a little interchangeable tooling such as this, can go a long way to making things easier in the home shop.


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## Antman (Feb 10, 2010)

Hi Guys,
  The only accessories included when I bought my lathe were a 3-jaw chuck and a centre each for the tailstock and the spindle. The 4-jaw was an expensive extra and not even a bolt-on. I had to work on it to make it fit. From the very little I had read about machining I knew I wanted a faceplate. The owner of a local engineering shop has been very generous and has given me various offcuts of plate and bar stock, including a disc of 160mm X25mm which I thought I was going to use for a faceplate, I might still.  Last week I found a really nice 200mm FP for another lathe and am busy making an adaptor from 25mm plate from the same source.
  As I understand it, you use a FP for getting bores square to a surface, to which end the FP must spin true.  I am trying to build some adjustment into my FP setup
   I really like the bolts on Blog's swan necks, if home made, how do yuo make the allen sockets?
    Ant


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## Blogwitch (Feb 10, 2010)

Ant, I'm not that keen.

The slots in the swan necks are 6mm, the cap screws are 4mm. I just made top hat adapters to stop the clamps wobbling about around a too small screw.

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