Sunday 17 February 2013

Nothing much to add this week. Spent the beginning of the week shellacing the carousel. Gave it 4 coats and that will be enough for me. By the way if there are Hardinge Cataract QC owners reading this that would like a collet tray I made a second one and that one is available. Just drop me a line through the comment block and we'll talk.
Spent some time back and forth with an other Cataract owner in California who just recently picked up a Cataract QC that is missing all the headstock parts. Unfortunately with only so many made spare parts are pretty near non existent. This owner has decided that he will be parting out the lathe as much as he can. So myself and a few other Cataract QC owners are talking to him about trying to gather whatever parts we need to refurbish our machines. Unfortunately like the majority of  us he does not have the taper attachment, collet draw bar, steady rest, follower rest, and a few other items. Hopefully everybody had a nice week and we'll see you next weekend.

Harold

Saturday 9 February 2013

Saturday 9 Feb and the first thing I did today was snow blow out all the snow we had over the last 24hrs. Then cleaned out a few neighbours as well since the plow had been by and they had some infill on the driveways. After that went to work in the shop. Over the last week I finished off the Two collet trays by turning all the dowels down and gluing them into the trays. Here's two shots of these trays one with them waiting for the glue to dry and the other showing one of the trays with a coat of stain. The second tray I'll leave unfinished so that if anybody wants it they can finish it themselves with what ever colour they want.
 The stained tray will get a few coats of either shellac or varnish haven't decided which yet. Then will need to buy some material to make the band and the centre shims that go around the mounting hole. After that was done decided that I had plenty of time to adapt the Collet drawbar I had purchased a while ago to fit into these lathes as I did not have an original draw bar. Bought a drawbar that came from a either Hardinge TL or T-5 lathe still not 100% sure. This draw bar was 3/4" to long to fit inside the headstock and draw the collet tight. You can see that here in this picture.







Therefore I needed to remove that 3/4" so chucked up the drawbar in the lathe and proceeded to make two cuts in the tube 3/4 of an inch apart. The two photos below will show the tube in the lathe and the start of the two cuts.



I then cut out the extra length went back to the lathe and chamfered the two edges and carefully fitted them up in preparation for welding. I then Tig welded them together as carefully as I could. Once done I placed it back in the lathe and removed the extra weld. After a little polishing with fine sandpaper it was time to check them out. Inserted the drawbar and snugged up a collet all works as it should. When I have a little more time down the road will chuck up some metal in the collet and really give the draw bar a work out. Here are a few more pictures showing the tube ready for welding and then snugged up in the lathe.

 
You can see by the last shot that even though this is not the correct draw bar for my lathe it still works as it should. Lots of clearance from anything else allowing easy usage. Once the other drawbar shows up will modify that one as well for the second lathe that I have.
All the best and enjoy the coming week.
Harold
 

Saturday 2 February 2013

Feb 02 2013

Well another week is gone by and a little more work has been done. The first thing I decided to do was make a pair of collet tray carousels. The new lathe needed one and I had some nice left over 1/4sawn white oak available. Well since I'm making one not much more work to make two and I know that there are a few owners out there who do not have one so maybe somebody would like the extra one. The first thing I did was joint and plane some blanks, once they were at the desired thickness finger jointed them and glued them up.
Here are some pictures showing the jointed boards and then the glued up blanks. Once they had dried up sanded them all down and then drew out a Fibonacci spiral along which would be bored 5/8" holes to accept the dowels that support the collets. Read up on the spiral and figured out that a 1/2"dia drill bit would be the perfect centre point to draw the spiral with. Gathered up some string wrapped it carefully around the drill bit leaving 3" out with a small loop that the pencil went into. Then with pencil in the loop carefully started drawing the spiral. As the string unwrapped the length got longer thus giving me a spiral trace on the would. The blanks were 18"dia so when the spiral reached the end I stopped. Then using a compass with 1-5/8" between point and pencil lead proceeded to mark out where the dowels would be placed. Once I had 68 points I stopped. This would be enough for 64 collets in 1/64th spacing and 4 holes for other things to store eg: live centre. Then went to the local Lowes to pick up some 7/8" dowel which was the size of the dowels on my other lathe. Was initially going to get Oak however being a bit of cheap skate went with Poplar instead since I could get 4ft for 3.50 as opposed to 3ft for 4.75. Carefully cut of 135 2.5" pieces and then started using the Boley metal lathe I have to turn down one end to 5/8" dia by 1/2" long to fit into the bored hole. I'll include a couple of pictures showing the Dowels in the lathe and a couple of them in the carousel blank.
 
Now I only have another 100 to turn down. This might take awhile. Once that is done we'll carefully glue them in and then stain the wood a nice dark colour and give it a few coats of Shellac. Then I'll need to install two steel plates in the centre to strengthen the 1.25" hole that is there for the carousel hangar nut to go. Well see you next week with an other installment
 
Harold