Stuart engineering Lathe

[coopertje]

Hi Bert,

Welcome to this forum and thanks for showing the pictures. Nice work on the lathe, looks good! I see that yours is completely made according to the drawings, I made some changed here and there. Must admit that the original version look very well too. Interesting way of machining the castings, I do not have the patience to make these kind of setups on the lathe :

Have been thinking on that chuck too a bit. My plan is to make the chuck out of one piece, not from 5 separate parts as mentioned in the plan. Make a piece of steel to the required OD and take it to the mill. From the side drill 4 holes at 90 degrees and tap them M5. In here the nuts to move the jaws up and down will be mounted. Then from the frontside of the chuck mill a slot of 3.4mm wide exactly parallel to the M5 holes. I will make a T-cutter of 5mm and cut the slots for the jaws. And somewhere in between drill a hole in the center of the chuck an tread MF8. Chuck body finished! I hope it will be as simple as it is in my mind now, but after reading your experience I am not so sure anymore ???

If possible, I would like to see your plan for the chuck, always nice to see other ideas! Also I like the wheels you made, have some pictures of those in progress?

Regards Jeroen

 

[bertieb]

Hi Jereon and All,
Many thanks for your kind comments, your idea for making the 4-jaw chuck
are very much the same as Antony Mount's, please take a look at the drawing.
I have put up a few pics of the 4-jaw that I made to the Stuart design.
Sorry but I don't have any photos of the handwheels being made, just one pic
of them part finished, I put the holes in using a Windy compressed air drill set at centre
height on the cross slide in conjunction the GHT headstock dividing attachment.
Bert.

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[coopertje]

Hi Bert,

Thanks for the picture of the chuck. Thats indeed exactly what I had in mind! This will save the trouble of drilling all the holes and in my opinion it also look better without the bolds pinching trough the front of the chuck.

If you have a tip how to make the jaws I will glad to hear them from you.

I will be heading to the airport now, CU in about 2 weeks.

Regards Jeroen

 

[bertieb]

Hi Jeroen and All,
Sorry I posted the wrong pic, this one now shows the part finished hand wheels.
Making the jaws, I first made a simple jig from a scrap piece of 2" x 1/2" mild steel (see sketch)
to hold each blank in turn ( I am sure Stuart's provide a legnth of 3/16" x 1/2" steel bar for the jaws).
I cut four oversize piece's of bar stock and milled the cut ends to length, the stock being held in the
jig with a small toolmakers clamp, I then milled the slot for the setscrew and then using the same jig setup
I used 1/16" wide saw to mill the guide slots on each side of the jaw.I was carefull to press each jaw
down on the stop pin when clamping, thus each jaw came out equal.
The jig can then turned ninety degrees, tilted over fortyfive degrees to mill each of the four chamfered
corners of each jaw, all four jaws can then be mounted in line in the machine vice to mill the jaw steps.
What i did for the steps was assemble the chuck, mount it on a mandrel, insert a stub of 3/16" dia
steel, adjust each setscrew so that that that the jaws ran true and then bored out the steps.
Bert.

 

[coopertje]

Hi Bert,

Thanks for explaning the machining steps. The only part I do not have clear yet is how you fixed the blanks in the jig.
The idea of fixing a piece of metal in the chuck and after make the steps crossed my mind too, thanks for the confirmation.

Regards from Sao Paulo

 

[bertieb]

Hi Jeroen and All,
How is Sao Paulo, I was there some fifty years ago when serving in the navy.
As for holding the blanks in the jig, you could drill and tap a hole at the side of the slot and
then use a small finger clamp, or in my case I used a small toolmakers clamp.
Greetings from cold Manchester UK.
Bert.

 

[gbritnell]

Hi Jeroen,
I don't mean to interfere with your build thread but why not simplify the construction of the chuck. By that I mean just make it out of one piece. I am attaching some close up pictures of my chuck and the cutters I made to do it. It was really quite simple. I turned and threaded the chuck body. Then I put it in my dividing head and drilled and tapped for the jaws. I rotated the dividing head to the vertical position and cut the outer recess with an end mill. I then made up a cutter from an end mill for the inside slot. I used an end mill that had the diameter that I needed and then gound away the stock on the shank until I had the proper width for the cutter head. I then used my magnifier and a Dremel grinder with a small cut-off disc and put some clearance on the inside of the cutter edges. Just like a T-slot cutter only tiny.
There will be two posts to send all the pictures. If you need any more information just let me know.
George

 

[gbritnell]

Last two pictures.
George

 

[coopertje]

Hi Bert,

Ok clear. Thank you for your interest in this build! I find Sao Paulo a big piece of gray concrete and way to crowded for me. The roads are blocked the complete day! I love Brazil but more the less crowded places. Tomorrow I will go to Limeira, a smaller city about 150km north of Sao Paulo. From there to Argentina, Peru, Panama and then finally back home!

Thanks George, you can always interfere, its appreciated! But please read reply #80 again, there you see that the idea is to make the chuck from one piece, make a special T-cutter etc.. It crossed my mind to make the cutter from an end-mill, since you have a lot of experience, do you think it will work modifying a 2-flute cutter (I have plenty of them)? Or is it better to sacrifice a 4-flute one?

Have fun, regards Jeroen

 

[gbritnell]

I used a 2 flute because the gullet on the flutes was deeper. I don't see why a four flute wouldn't work. It would be stronger at the root.
George

 

[coopertje]

Thanks George, I will give it a try with a 2 flute end mill, I have them a lot more then the 4 flute ones. I am afraid that when I arrive home I first need to defrost and get accustomed to the cold again the first week. Here its a lovely 30 degrees, in Holland below zero and snow.....maybe I can miss my plane... ;D

Regards Jeroen

 

[coopertje]

Well, I arrived back in the cold again. I must admit I truly hate the cold over here. So nice to have warm and comfortable temperatures. In my shop it is around 6 degrees now, not fun to work for many hours there. I have a small heater that helps, but even-though its cold. Further my wife has made plans to spend my free time, need to rebuild the stairs and do some things here and there :redface2:

Last week I made the tool post, not so much work, but fun to do!

I started with the facing the end of bar supplied in the kit

Next was to cut the slots where a little tool can be mounted later. I used the saw in the lathe for that, the width is 4mm. I had to go though twice, the slots should be 5mm.

Time to center drill the 9 holes for the tool clamping bolds (M3) and the center hole of 4mm to mount the post on the cross slide.

Tap M3

Drilling finished, so I cut off the tool post from its stock using the slit saw

and faced the bottom to get it to dimension and a good finish

Here is the result mounted on the lathe

When time allows I next part I will make is frontside for the cross slide. After this I need to make the chuck and the handwheels. I hope to be able to have it finished before the end of this year, I have my fingers crossed if I will make it.....

Thanks for checking in and have fun!

Regards Jeroen

 

[NickG]

Jeroen, good to see you back on this project. Tool post is great, infact, if it weren't for the things in the background on the pics, you wouldn't know it was a model lathe!

Nick

 

[swilliams]

Welcome back Jeroen

Nice job on the toolpost. Too bad about your wife filling in your spare time diary, rebuilding stairs sounds like a big job, are you sure you can't do it with CNC?

P.S. thanks for checking in on my thread

Cheers
Steve

 

[Jeff02]

I have been watching this thread with Great excitement, and can guarantee that I nominate it for Project of the month when complete.
Beautiful work Jeroen! Thm:

 

[coopertje]

Thank you guys for the nice words, it really makes a difference! I will show it to my wife, maybe she will give me some time off to make some more progress ;D

Hope to do some this weekend, will post the news when it's there.

Have fun, regards Jeroen

 

[steamer]

Oh I have got to see some chips coming off that little beauty.... ;D

Dave

 

[coopertje]

What kind of flavor do you prefer Dave, natural or paprika?

 

[steamer]

:big: :big:

Brass would be fitting! ;D


Dave

 

[coopertje]

Ok, I will see what I can do for you. Let me first find the time to finish the thing, then I will find a way to drive the spindle. I am actually curious if I can make some cuts with the machine. Just for the record of course.

Regards Jeroen