Faceplate

Gary

Gary

SE Kansas
Some time back I bought a 5c Collet chuck for my lathe. That was the easy part. Finding a Faceplate for said chuck was an adventure. I could find a face plate, but justifying the cost was another matter. In traversing the immense Youtube vid library I managed to find a guy that had the same dilemma and his solution. Where most cast iron face plates were in the $100 and up price range, he found a faceplate that fit almost perfectly @ Grizzly for $8 + shipping. He didn't disclose the item #, ect of the face plate but by stopping the vid at the moment he had the face plate setting on the invoice I was able to copy the item # and got a order placed. BTW, his vid was several years old but the item still existed. Got the face plate and the register part was out of round and smaller than the mounting surface of the chuck. Figured I'd lost my $15 investment. However, today I put it on the Lathe and faced off all the surfaces until it was <.001 runout. Pretty proud of myself, but the register was small. So, I undertook the nasty job of cutting a larger register by facing the plate and forming a wider register. What a mess, however, I now have a face plate that fits very snug and I can now use the 5c Collet chuck. Now to clean the Lathe.
 
Brad

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
But the lathe is such an enabler.
Mine I vote a drill press and mill over and they refuse to leave. Next thing I know I have this huge rolling tool chest, a rotary table, and lots of little very expensive pieces of HSS and carbide.
Damn lathe....
 
wquiles

wquiles

Well-Known Member
Cherokee said:
Lathe should be the first major tool you buy for a shop.
Click to expand...
My machining mentor is a professional machinist, electrician, and welder - he literally lives out of these services, i.e., gets paid for all work. As it regards for machining, he has always stand by the statement that the lathe "IS" without question, the money maker in most/all machine shops - his included.

Even as a hobby machinist, getting paid for the flashlight mods I did, titanium parts, etc., these part-time projects were enough to pay for what the lathe cost me "easily", and cover most if not all of the machining tools/parts I got for the lathe. Yes, I am not going to lie, having the Enco knee mill and vertical and horizontal indexers greatly expand one's capabilities, but by far the lathe was "the" money maker for me as a home/hobby machinist :)
 
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