mklotz
Well-Known Member
Here's two quickies...
If you're a scavenger like me you probably have some collets in your shop that are either buggered or fit some machine you don't have and never will. Here's something to do with a knackered collet. Use it as a soldering jig to hold three pieces of thin metal as shown and solder them where they abut in the middle of the collet.
Now you have a nice 3jaw chuck spider that will allow you to close the jaws to almost zero. A plus of this design is the fact that, unlike parallels, you can leave it in place while the lathe is turning. Since this shape is trapped by the lathe jaws, there's no possibility of it flying out.
Now you have an excuse to save the buggered collet. You'll want to make other sizes in the future.
Since I now have a (CDCO) QCTP (Xmas present from my wife), I got started making some accessories for it. First was a block to hold a DI at center height
to use while centering stuff in the 4jaw. Those of you who have read my treatise on 4jaw centering know that I like to move the two horizontal jaws in concert while watching the DI so a solid horizontal holder for the instrument is key.
I didn't have a dovetail cutter big enough to make the dovetails full depth so they're a bit shallow. It's not a problem since there's no significant forces applied to the device in use.
If you're a scavenger like me you probably have some collets in your shop that are either buggered or fit some machine you don't have and never will. Here's something to do with a knackered collet. Use it as a soldering jig to hold three pieces of thin metal as shown and solder them where they abut in the middle of the collet.
Now you have a nice 3jaw chuck spider that will allow you to close the jaws to almost zero. A plus of this design is the fact that, unlike parallels, you can leave it in place while the lathe is turning. Since this shape is trapped by the lathe jaws, there's no possibility of it flying out.
Now you have an excuse to save the buggered collet. You'll want to make other sizes in the future.
Since I now have a (CDCO) QCTP (Xmas present from my wife), I got started making some accessories for it. First was a block to hold a DI at center height
to use while centering stuff in the 4jaw. Those of you who have read my treatise on 4jaw centering know that I like to move the two horizontal jaws in concert while watching the DI so a solid horizontal holder for the instrument is key.
I didn't have a dovetail cutter big enough to make the dovetails full depth so they're a bit shallow. It's not a problem since there's no significant forces applied to the device in use.
