Need a faceplate

with a 8 tpi thread. How common is this size? If I'm patient will one show up on e-bay eventually?

This is a very common spindle thread. If you search correctly and keep at it, it is my guess that you will find a nice 8-9" faceplate for $50 or so within a few months. I have never seen an 11" faceplate for this spindle thread, though.

Lots of guys get tired of waiting and buy the (very nice) faceplate kit from Andy Lofquist at MLA. Of course, you need some sort of faceplate to machine it, though.

I have an 8-1/2" faceplate I've never used. If you want to make me an offer on it, see

and drop me an email.

Grant Erw> My old 12 X 36 Clausing lacks a faceplate. Its spindle is 1 1/2 inches

That's encoraging.

Thanks for the vector. I may buy other items from him. The faceplate he offers is nice but how would I mill the T-slots?

Where's Kirkland? I'm at Osoyoos B.C. just north of Oroville WA.

I made a great 16-inch faceplate for my gap bed lathe from a Ford truck flywheel. It is nice and thick, also heavy. I believe that the center hole was 1½ inches before I started machining it.

That's an idea worth considering.

Another I thought might work is the table from a good sized drill press which already has nice radial slots cut in it and a central hub.

John Ings snipped-for-privacy@spam.org

The size you mention is quite common--just never commonly available when needed.

Yes, you can make a threaded bushing adaptor, although it would be a bit much to have to buy a wrong size FP just to make an adaptor for it.

Some other possibilities are to find what's available from woodturning lathe mfgs. (I'm not conversant enough to know which brand uses 1 1/2 by 8).

Or, to obtain a stock hardware nut, and fabricate a flat to it.

Frank Morrison

Kirkland is near by. Martin

1 1/2 x8 is just about the most commons spindle thread among amateur machinist. It is used in the venerable 9" South Bend and many other 9 to 12" lathes.

Probably -- but then you'll probably pay far more than it is worth. I see decent faceplates for this spindle at used machinery dealers all the time. Typical prices is $20-$25.

Not really. If you are willing to go through the trouble of machining an adapter, it is much easier to machine a faceplate from a kit. Here are some options. First of all, you should go for a much bigger faceplate than will fit a 9". I would suggest up to 12". Here are some options.

1. Buy a faceplate kit from metal-lathes accessories. Nice face plate.
2. Scrounge around for a finished or unfinished chuck backing plate. The finished ones with a 1.5 x 8 spindle will tend to be small. The unfinished ones usually have a lot of meat on them and can easily handle the spindle. I did one like that -- but instead of cutting the usual T-slots, I put in about 96 2/8 x 16 threaded holes. Much more useful than the typical slotted faceplate.

Boris Beizer Fellow 12" Clausing owner.

I've got a 11" plate that came with my Clausing 12"x 36". The lathe is a L00 spindle and the plate is threaded. Alas I think it is a 1

[ ... ]

^^^^^^^^

"2/8-16"? Did you mean to type 3/8-16, or do you actually have a 1/4-16 tap? (I've never seen one, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Of course "1/4 16." I never make mistakes. Had to make all my own studs, screws and nuts, in addition to a set of tap. The regular screws were okay, but those socket heads -- ouch. Especially since I chose to use

13/64th sockets.....

Actually, it was 3/8 16, as graciously corrected by Don. But I was mistaken about another thing. It wasn't 96 holes, but 144 -- just counted them. Laid out in a hexagonal pattern on 3/4" centers. Made myself a tapping jig to start the taps straight, went real slow, and only had to helicoil two of them.

Boris

1 1/2 - 8 are common and show up frequently, since they fit Atlas, SB, and Logan. I would wait for one and forget the adapter. John

"Boris Beizer" snipped-for-privacy@sprintmail.com

Don

Boris

lol

2/8ths is acceptable nomenclature. When I was in school (having two dogs), my usual excuse was... er, the two ate my homework. Re: number of holes (144): no wonder whomever invented the slot. FM

I thought about putting in T-Slots. But that was a stretch on my little mill. Besides, laying out and indicating 8 slots would have take a lot of time. Except for care in tapping, 144 holes (plus two helicoils) was a no brainer by comparison. In a production situation though, it's obvious that the slots are far less labor intensive. Actually, I like the holes better. I've made a few fixture platesout of aluminum and also steel to use on my Burke mill -- which has only one T-slot. Again, lots of 3/8-16 holes on 3/4" centers in a hexagonal pattern. They work really well. All things considered, consider holes instead of slots.

Boris

The guy that I got my planer from had thick aluminum on both of his CNC vertical mills with evenly spaced threaded holes. He was doing some very interesting things on the machines. Someday I'll find the snail mail note and hope he likes that house. My planer has both T-slots and threaded holes , I like them , but I'll wait till its a problem with a face plate I got from the group.

George McDuff contacted me and asked that I post the following message to this thread because he does not currently have write access to the newsgroup. It's rather lengthy so if he went to the trouble of typing it all, posting it is the least I can do. :-)

Since the original message appears to no longer be on the server I'm just adding it to the last message in the thread. His message is below my sig. Since I'm just the messenger there is little point in replying to me. :-)

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

P.S. OE seems to be screwing with the format and won't let me change it. Hopefully it'll end up corrected as it's posted. :-/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Keith:

I don't have write access to the RCM news group. Please post to the

faceplate thread is you think it would be helpful.

GmcD

======================================

Faceplates

The school purchased the assets of an other institutions technology

program which included 4 4900 series Clousing lathes.

We were able to get three of the operational with one hangar queen for

spare parts.

Limited numbers/types of chucks were included, but no face plates.

We are fortunate enough to be in the oil patch so our local fastener

supplier had 1-1/2 X 8 hex nuts and threaded bar in stock. As I recall the

nuts were about $3.00 each. I purchased 4 of these for spindle thread

protectors.

As our need for at least one face plate became apparent, these were priced

and found to be very expensive. We inquired at several of our local metal

dealers for 9 or 10 inch MS rounds about an inch thick. These were

available but were not only expensive but would be flame cut to size making

them difficult to machine.

Wood lathe face plates were considered, but examination of those on the

lathes in the wood shop indicated these were too light for metal lathe use

and some were cast aluminum.

A look in my 15th edition of Machinerys handbook (page 1776) indicated

that American Standard Cast 125 pipe flanges were 9 inches in diameter for

the nominal 4 inch pipe and 10 inches in diameter for the nominal 5 inch

pipe. American Standard 250 Standard Cast pipe flanges were 9 inches in

diameter for 3-1/2 nominal pipe and 10 inches in diameter for 4 inch

nominal pipe.

Blinds or blank off plates were priced at our local pipe supplier and

were found to be surprisingly inexpensive, around 30$ for the 125 series

which is nominally 15/16 thick which seemed adequate for our uses. The 250

series is about 1-1/4 thick and slightly more expensive. After some

measurement, we purchased a 125 series 5 inch blank off plate for about 30$.

A spare 1-1/2 X 8 nut was threaded on the spindle nose, faced and

counterbored to match the back side of the chuck mounting holes. It was

then reversed on the spindle, faced and heavily chamfered to allow adequate

weld penetration.

The plank off plate had been faced machined on both sides so it was not

difficult to pick up the center within a 1/16 or so. We scribed a circle

the same size as the across the flats dimension of the 1-1/2 X 8 nut (as I

recall 2-1/4 diameter). By using a square against the sides of the nut it

could be positioned quite accurately. A piece of 1 inch square stock was

drilled to take 3/8 bolts and this was used to clamp the nut into position

using some long 3/8 bolts and some big washers through the flange holes.

The school is fortunate to have a superb welding instructor with every

certificate I have ever heard of and he agreed to tig weld the nut to the

blank off plate. I am not sure what he used for filler, but it was a

beautiful weld job.

The assembly was allowed to air cool overnight.

We are fortunate to have a sand blast cabinet, and the weldment was

thoroughly cleaned. When mounted on the lathe it would clear the ways but

would contact the saddle at a few locations [The OD of the blind was not

machined.

The 1 inch square bar used to clamp the nut in position was recycled by

milling the thickness down until it could be clamped in the lathe square

turret, drilling a 5/16 diameter hole to accept a 1/4 square lathe tool,

and drilling/tapping a 10X32 hole to clamp the lathe tool. The location of

the 5/16 hole was eye-balled to put the lathe tool on center.

Considerable chatter was experienced when taking anything but very light

cuts, but with patience and a very sharp carbide tool the OD was machined

to clear the front part of the saddle so that we could get a tool directly

mounted in the square turret in far enough to face the face plate.

The faceplate was then center drilled to eliminate the tit in the middle

and allow inside-out machining with a right hand lathe tool. (See comment

below on this)

Two problems surfaced at this point. (1) Some areas were harder than the

hubs of hell -- we should have put the weldment in a box full of lime or

mica to cool. (2) Selection of feeds and speeds was difficult because of

the large change in SFM between the center of the face plate and the

outside edge.

After several false starts, a special tool grind seemed to work the best.

From a suggestion in an old shaper book a tool was ground from M2 HSS with

about 45% side rake and a large (c.2 inch) nose radius. This gave a

shearing action with good surface finish across the entire cut with a fine

feed and .002 to .005 depth of cut using Tap-magic spiked with Castrol

moly disulfide concentrate for lubricant. The chips came off very tightly

curled.

Because we do not have a T-slot cutter, we decided to use tapped holes.

Machine Shop Methods by Lorus J. Milne has a suggested circular/radial hole

layout for a drilling table [p238] which was also shown for a lathe face

plate [p64 & 65]. After some research and consideration of the size parts

we can machine on a 4900 series lathe, we decided to use 3/8 X 24 hold

downs. Fine threads were selected because of the easier tapping and

resistance to loosening because of vibration. It was found worthwhile to

counterbore the Q tap drill [0.332] to 3/8 to a depth of a light 1/8 or

about 2 threads. This not only helped start the tap but also avoided

having the threads stick up above the surface after tapping or applying

considerable clamping force.

Because we had center drilled the face plate, we had to drill through, make

a plug and re-establish the center to accurately lay-out the holes.

This face plate has been very satisfactory, and we are planning on making

two more as student projects.

You can get a reprint of Machine Shop Methods [and many other very helpful

and/or entertaining reprints] from

for $18.95 +

S/H.

I find the Lindsay reprints, stressing one-off machining with minimum

attachments and maximum imagination/initiative as was traditionally the

case, to be much more useful than the current books stressing high tech /

high volume manufacturing, for introductory machining instruction and the

home shop machinist.

George McDuffee

1401 Boyd - Apt D

Borger TX 79007

snipped-for-privacy@texasonline.net

Faceplates The school purchased the assets of an other institution?s technology program which included (4) 4900 series Clousing lathes. We were able to get three of the operational with one hangar queen for spare parts. Limited numbers/types of chucks were included, but no face plates.

We are fortunate enough to be in the ?oil patch? so our local fastener supplier had 1-1/2 X 8 hex nuts and threaded bar in stock. As I recall the nuts were about $3.00 each. I purchased

4 of these for spindle thread protectors.

As our need for at least one face plate became apparent, these were priced and found to be very expensive. We inquired at several of our local metal dealers for 9 or 10 inch MS rounds about an inch thick. These were available but were not only expensive but would be flame cut to size making them difficult to machine.

Wood lathe face plates were considered, but examination of those on the lathes in the wood shop indicated these were too light for metal lathe use and some were cast aluminum.

A look in my 15th edition of Machinery?s handbook (page 1776) indicated that American Standard Cast 125 pipe flanges were 9 inches in diameter for the nominal 4 inch pipe and 10 inches in diameter for the nominal 5 inch pipe. American Standard 250 Standard Cast pipe flanges were 9 inches in diameter for 3-1/2 nominal pipe and 10 inches in diameter for 4 inch nominal pipe. ?Blinds? or ?blank off plates? were priced at our local pipe supplier and were found to be surprisingly inexpensive, around

30$ for the 125 series which is nominally 15/16 thick which seemed adequate for our uses. The 250 series is about 1-1/4 thick and slightly more expensive. After some measurement, we purchased a 125 series 5 inch blank off plate for about 30$.

A spare 1-1/2 X 8 nut was threaded on the spindle nose, faced and counterbored to match the back side of the chuck mounting holes. It was then reversed on the spindle, faced and heavily chamfered to allow adequate weld penetration.

The blank off plate had been face machined on both sides so it was not difficult to pick up the center within a 1/16 or so. We scribed a circle the same size as the across the flats dimension of the 1-1/2 X 8 nut (as I recall 2-1/4 diameter). By using a square against the sides of the nut it could be positioned quite accurately. A piece of 1 inch square stock was drilled to take

3/8 bolts and this was used to clamp the nut into position using some long 3/8 bolts and some big washers through the flange holes.

The school is fortunate to have a superb welding instructor with every certificate I have ever heard of and he agreed to tig weld the nut to the blank off plate. I am not sure what he used for filler, but it was a beautiful weld job.

The assembly was allowed to air cool overnight.

We are fortunate to have a sand blast cabinet, and the weldment was thoroughly cleaned. When mounted on the lathe it would clear the ways but would contact the saddle at a few locations [The OD of the ?blind flange? was not machined.

The 1 inch square bar used to clamp the nut in position was recycled by milling the thickness down until it could be clamped in the lathe square turret, drilling a 5/16 diameter hole to accept a 1/4 square lathe tool, and drilling/tapping a 10X32 hole to clamp the lathe tool. The location of the 5/16 hole was ?eye-balled? to put the lathe tool on center. Considerable chatter was experienced when taking anything but very light cuts, but with patience and a very sharp carbide tool the OD was machined to clear the front part of the saddle so that we could get a tool directly mounted in the square turret in far enough to face the face plate.

The faceplate was then center drilled to eliminate the ?tit? in the middle and allow inside-out machining with a right hand lathe tool. (See comment below on this)

Two problems surfaced at this point. (1) Some areas were harder than the hubs of hell -- we should have put the weldment in a box full of lime or mica to cool. (2) Selection of feeds and speeds was difficult because of the large change in SFM between the center of the face plate and the outside edge.

After several false starts, a special tool grind seemed to work the best. From a suggestion in an old shaper book a tool was ground from M2 HSS with about 45% side rake and a large (c.2 inch) nose radius. This gave a shearing action with good surface finish across the entire cut with a fine feed and .002 to .005 depth of cut using Tap-magic ?spiked? with Castrol moly disulfide concentrate for lubricant. The chips came off very tightly curled.

Because we do not have a T-slot cutter, we decided to use tapped holes.

Machine Shop Methods by Lorus J. Milne has a suggested circular/radial hole layout for a drilling table [p238] which was also shown for a lathe face plate [p64 & 65]. After some research and consideration of the size parts we can machine on a

4900 series lathe, we decided to use 3/8 X 24 hold downs. Fine threads were selected because of the easier tapping and resistance to loosening because of vibration. It was found worthwhile to counterbore the Q tap drill [0.332] to 3/8 to a depth of a light 1/8 or about 2 threads. This not only helped start the tap but also avoided having the threads stick up above the surface after tapping or applying considerable clamping force.

Because we had center drilled the face plate, we had to drill through, make a plug and re-establish the center to accurately lay-out the holes. This face plate has been very satisfactory, and we are planning on making two more as student projects.

You can get a reprint of Machine Shop Methods [and many other very helpful and/or entertaining reprints] from

for $18.95 + S/H.

I find the Lindsay reprints, stressing one-off machining with minimum attachments and maximum imagination/initiative (as was traditionally the case) to be much more useful than the current books stressing high tech / high volume manufacturing, for introductory machining instruction and the home shop machinist.