Have a look at lathes.co.uk website. This is a huge reference site that many of the members on this site go to with queries such as yours.

Hope thats useful. Regards

The difficulty is that the Hardinge spindle nose (a 4 degree taper with locking pin) is pretty much specific to that brand and backplates and chucks to fit are hard to find. There are some available (not cheap!) in the USA e.g.

**LINK**

but I've not seen them advertised in the UK or Europe – would also be interested to hear if anyone has a source!

Another option is to make one – Google Images search for "Hardinge taper drawing" will find the spindle dimensions…

A small chuck could also be mounted using the 5c spindle taper e.g.

**LINK**

Hi Fernando, I checked the page you found at Shars.com, but I could only see chucks there with the D-series mounting. So unless I missed something, those will not be relevant for your lathe.

Buying used is risky. I have the older version of this lathe (the narrow bed HLV) and the chucks that came with it are very worn. Used chucks with the Hardinge taper mount could also be worn, and are rare, and will still be quite expensive…

Do you have another lathe which you could use to make a new backplate yourself?

Congratulations by the way – you have a great lathe which should be a pleasure to use.

And remember, you can do a LOT of work with just collets, until a solution can be found for the chucks.

If you already have a set of ER collets, by the way, you can use an adaptor like this:

**LINK**

and similar items are also available for ER 40 collets. This lets you cover a big range of diameters without spending a LOT of money on a full set of 5C collets…

Hi Fernando, have a look at this website that show how to make one.

http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Projects/Bison/bison.html

Cheers

It's very easy to turn the hardinge nose taper to make chuck back plates. I've made a faceplate with an integral mount and two chuck backplates. The 3 and 4 jaw chucks I got with my HLV were in a very poor condition, although I managed to get some soft jaws and a new scroll from Rotagrip.

The nose cover protects the spindle outside taper when using collets in the spindle. It would otherwise be vulnerable to damage.

The drawing could – thoeretically – be used to produce a chuck mount but the fit is so fine that there is no substitute really for having the spindle present for bluing or a decent dummy taper to use as a gauge.

ZMT had a gauge for the grinders to re-finish the spindle taper. It had a pair of marks on it that bracketed the spindle witness mark when the taper was ground to the correct size.

I believe that there is a difference between the British and American built machines. The British Machines have a 4 degree taper as opposed to the 3 degree 59 minute 30 second of the American machines.

Not a problem if you are working to the taper on your machine.

David.

Is it the 1st of April

Tony

HLVs are lovely machines. 5C collets are readily available from a few sources, ZMT in Nottingham specialise in them, and I'm pretty sure Hardinge USA still supply parts. As the Lathes.co.uk site will tell you, there's a good few clones too.

Personally, I'd try and keep the spindle nose original. It is a very well made system, as well as jaw chucks you can get collet closers for big or internal gripping collets. It also has some really nifty tricks for screw cutting, easily the loveliest machine I've ever done full threads to a shoulder on.

I'd love to track a good one down one day. The one I regularly use has, sadly, been hideously neglected and abused, but you can tell it was once a superb machine. They did some very nifty auto and capstan versions too.

I make it roughly 0.00017" difference which is no difference at all given that the big and small ends have a 7 tenths allowance on the drawing.

Edited By Pete Rimmer on 27/09/2021 19:34:35

ZMT web site is still working they may have spares.

David