Homemade Lathe |
| This all began with the aquisition of a broken down Jet 14" table saw. I was running out of capacity on my 12" Rockwell lathe and was wanting
to turn bowls and platters in the 12" to 20" range. The tablesaw seemed like it would make an excellent base for a larger
swing lathe. It also provided an abundance of parts of which I am still putting to use. The first challenge was to figure out some kind of headstock. I decided to go with a at least a 1 1/2" diameter spindle. Did some shopping on ebay and found one that looked like it would work. Next was the acquisition of some bearings. Found a very hefty SKF roller bearing pillow block for the front of the spindle. Went with two 1 7/16" pillow block ball bearings for the rear. Had to mill a few bushings to get the rear bearings to fit proper. For the pulley I went with an off the shelf 3 step pulley. I had to do a little mill work to make it fit onto the spindle. The contershaft pulley is a 4 step. There is enough lateral movement in the mount for each of the middle countershaft pulleys to engage two of the spindle pulley steps. That allows for a total of six speeds from 230 to 575. In the first configuration of the lathe (May 2006) I mounted the bearing/spindle assembly directly to the table saw top using some spacer blocks. Originally I was going to attach the lathe bed to the end of the saw cabinet. The prospect of taking up so much floor space caused me to re-think that plan. Part of the trunnion assembly is being used as a motor mount. The next configuration of the lathe project (March 2008) brought more changes including using the cast iron wings to construct a headstock riser for a 25" swing. The lathe bed is from a Harbor Freight Tools Central Machinery 12" lathe. The headstock was donated to a mill project which can be seen in the pictures. The mill has since been dismantled and the headstock is scheduled to be used in a rose engine lathe project. The motor mount has a new configuration which makes for fairly quick speed changes. The tailstock was purchased off of Ebay. The barrel extends about 5". The lathe went through a few more changes as of May 2008. Some of the changes include: removing the riser blocks from the bearings, dropping the swing to 21". Adjusting the tailstock height to match. Modifying the tool holder for the lower swing. Replacing the solid pivot bar in the motor mount with a hollow tube. Centering the lathe bed with the spindle and adding an angle support from the lathe bed to the head stock. September 2008, finished setting up the cross slide. It has since been put into use with the threading jig. March of 2009, with a cross country move behind us, making a few adjustments to the lathe. First up is a change to the base. I turned the base to it's original upright position and cut 4" off the height. Next I cut out the front panel and welded it to the end of the cabinet. At some point I'll construct and install some drawers to go in the front opening. Welded some tabs on the end and back, and used a piece of angle iron on the front to secure the cast iron top. Finally, reworked the motor mount assembly replacing the wood supports with metal ones. Need to clean up some rust, other then that it is ready to go. May of 2009, turning to the current capacity of 21". June 2009, fabricated some mounting plates for the lathe bed to allow movement for gap turning up to 28". Added a 1/4" plate to the headstock to increase stability. |
