I then proceeded to mount it on the lathe, a very snug fit indeed but it is removable. I call that a success!

Now it is time to hog out some material, not a trivial task on this small lathe.

At this point I was discouraged, I had been using HSS tools and the low rpm range of the lathe lacked a bit of strength at this diameter as well as it got hot and started to smell hot lacquer (nooot good). I then switched to insert tooling and maxed the rpm and kicked up the feed rate quite substantially and some time later and a bag full of chips I came to this point

Next I proceeded to make a bevel on the front face, firstly for cosmetic reasons, secondly to get access with my threading tool to the small diameter.

which also ended up with a mountain of swarf

Bob. The way I do it is to measure the distance between the holes with a caliper and then subtract the hole diameter to get the cc distance. Then I use this table (disregard the Swedish)

to calculate the diameter that the holes lie on, this can then be marked out on the target, then using a compass to mark out the holes.

This was an interesting turn of events. When I removed the chuck to drill holes for a tommy bar, I realized that the fit over the register was almost loose but before it was a tight interference fit. My guess is that although it is hot rolled it must have been slightly compressed from the mill. This compression got reduced as I turned down the outer layer and thus enlarged the register by a couple of 0.01 mm. I am usually very wary about this when I mill cold rolled steel but I did not know this could happen. I would say cool! Apparently it registers good enough and I have 0.005 mm runout on the body and 0.02 TIR at a test bar 15mm dia 40mm out from the chuck, this is actually smaller than the stated runout on the collets, again cool! As everything seems to work I will not grind the internal taper since I got such a fantastic finish on it.

Well it is a combinations of things that led to the wider body. My original thought was that it would look better, secondly it suited the material at hand, thirdly (and this is an afterthought) greater rotational mass seems to improve finish and reduce vibrations when turning. Maybe these are valid points but who knows it's a god question.

Begun mocking up a steady rest. I decided that this southbend type design is quite neat, now I need a good locking mechanism…

Thanks Dave.

I have to say I don't really know, it is almost a hit and miss procedure. This one came out really nice according to my standards, even though they have in average improved through training they often have at least one letter that looks drunk. I do stamping freehand and usually scribe a line to follow, then when I place a letter I try to look from the side to see where the edge of the letter is and just judge the distance to the previous letter and the scribed line. Getting the letter straight is easily done by gauging the square shank of the stamp against the scribed line.

Tim, those as excellent points! I actually found some research papers on the second cause. I.e. The residual stress in hot rolled profiles due to the uneven cooling, in that case the made the simplification that the profile is rolled and left in a hot annealed state and then cooled by advection, this then caused the uneven residual stress.

Recently I have had a lack of time in the shop, but I managed to get some time to work on the faceplate. First I drilled and reamed a 10mm hole and milled a flat around the hole.

I then pressed this onto a turned spigot and proceeded to face off and prepare the step for the spindle.

The reason for the spigot is that I cannot mount this large piece in any reasonable way on the lathe. However drilling the mounting holes I needed to keep the disc flat on the milling table and since this is a scrap piece, actually the end of a bar I had to mill the other side reasonably flat before drilling the holes for the mounting screws. This is where I realized that end-pieces can be quite tricky. One of the edges had a moon shaped inclusion of steel that was noticeably harder than the bulk material, had to take it slow on my less than rigid milling machine.

I then drilled the mounting holes and put it on the lathe.

This is where I again noticed the problem with the hard inclusion, it showed up when turning. Even though I was taking material off the whole diameter the lathe sounded like it was taking a mild interrupted cut and the finish was terrible on the harder part. I hope it will not come back and bite me but I just decided to polish the surface until everything looked homogeneous.

I decided that the next step will be to mill t-slots in the faceplate. On the Myford you have a threaded spindle so the faceplate for that can have slots all the way through and almost all the way down to the centre of the plate. However these mini-lathes have this rediculous backplate making the faceplate concept less then ideal, therefore t-slots will allow me to move the mounting points as I please. I will be making the t-slots to the Myford dimensions to improve compatibility of things.

Btw. In all my photos you will find splotches, this is due to my broken camera that I have not taken the time to fix (Iphone). Apparently a new camera costs about 10 £, but you have to disassemble most of the phone to get to it. Maybe I will take the effort at some point.

Edited By Benny Avelin on 16/03/2017 08:43:40

Making an angle plate from some hot rolled angle iron, not the best material as it seems to have a high resonance.

Making center plugs for the faceplate, the idea is to be useful in locating and also to be able to attach mandrels and such.

This is the current state of affairs, what is left is completing the centerplugs

Another view of the same

Thats all for now.

Edited By Benny Avelin on 26/03/2017 10:51:20

To improve concentricity I drilled and reamed the sleeves in the same setup.

These are the finished sleeves and the arbor to hold them while milling the flats for a spanner. Behind is the 12mm material for the rods.

When all operations where done in that setup I drilled out the centre, so much swarf…