Spindle Spider: Buy vs. Make

Learn by doing ! It's not a very complicated project .

I am going to assume you mean an outboard spider for the back side of the spindle so you can dial in a piece of stock to be straight when run through the spindle bore.

Yes, its a pretty easy project, and it doesn't have to be any special degree of perfectly machined. It can be a trivial project for an experienced machinist or even a modestly experienced hack on some lathes. This does not mean its not a good skill builder. All these little projects are great skill builders at some point of your journey, and you get to decide how far you want to chase zeros.

I have noticed a few small lathes that don't have a lot of room to mount an outboard spindle spider, but its still something you can figure out.

However, in case you were talking about a front spider used for spacing work in front of the chuck take a look at Joe Pi's video on drilling and tapping the front of the chuck for different bolt on spacers instead. Its a little less trivial, but may be a better option than the typical Y or X shaped block of metal some people throw between the jaws. You can have more than one circle of holes for different projects, and making spacers the same length while not trivial is not overly hard either. Also a great skill builder.

If you have a project you need it for yesterday and you are to busy to stop and make something then buy something, but if you have any time just make/modify your own.

One thing a lot of beginners, and forgive me if I have assumed to much here, have a problem with is finding projects to do on their machine tools. Making tools for your tools are great projects that build your skills, teach lessons, and make you much more capable when another project comes along that needs doing.

I'm thinking of buying a spindle spider for my mini-lathe, but I was also considering making one, which I've not done before. I wanted to ask if it was recommended that I make it a do-it-yourself project, or just get one the lazy way by spending in excess of $70+ for a new one that would be guaranteed to be spot on.

I'm assuming most here probably would make their own as needed, but wanted to ask.

Thanks.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

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I have two, one is a cheap drill chuck with its nose end turned down to fit into the 5C collet closer tube, the other is water pipe bored part way to fit snugly over the spindle. Neither attaches to the spindle, tightening it onto the rod stock is enough for my low speed lathe. 1" water pipe has an ID slightly smaller than 27mm and could be bored to slip on or lightly threaded M27x1.5, your preference.

The 1/2" Multi-Craft drill chuck is more convenient because it self-centers. Instead of a key it tightens adequately by short capstan rods pressed into the key holes. I cut away the mounting end so I can't tell, but it might have been large enough to bore and thread to fit the mini lathe spindle. The chuck body was made from unhardened free-machining steel. Stock larger than it's capacity hasn't been a problem, perhaps because I saw the section I'm working from shorter to fit storage and run truer in the collet.

For the outside spider I just borrow the shortest screws that fit from the stock bin to minimize their spinning hazard.

One thing a lot of beginners, and forgive me if I have assumed to much here, have a problem with is finding projects to do on their machine tools. Making tools for your tools are great projects that build your skills, teach lessons, and make you much more capable when another project comes along that needs doing. Bob La Londe

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I bought machine tools to build equipment I wanted and prove I could handle all aspects of a prototype project at work, not just the electronics, but much of their output has been custom workshop and automotive tools, some from DIY plans in the vehicles' factory shop manuals.

They have been less useful than I expected for making replacement car parts, many of which require hardening or protective plating since they fail from wear or corrosion. The most valuable was a drill jig to remove a broken-off screw in an aluminum intake manifold.

For outdoor equipment an anvil and bending machines have been more useful than the lathe or mill to make metal brackets to patch or replace broken plastic parts. I probably could get along there with just a drill press.

I have two hand hammered, sawn, and bent aluminum brackets holding plastic bits of my truck together right now. One is a headlight bracket and another joins a broken radiator shroud. On my dad's truck I repaired a broken "carbon fiber plastomer" headlight bracket with a wrap of fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin.

You do what you gotta do.

I have two hand hammered, sawn, and bent aluminum brackets holding plastic bits of my truck together right now. One is a headlight bracket and another joins a broken radiator shroud. On my dad's truck I repaired a broken "carbon fiber plastomer" headlight bracket with a wrap of fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin.

You do what you gotta do.

Bob La Londe

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A brake like this bends the thicker stock for me:

Damn straight ! I've gotten the A/C up and running in my old truck , and I knew I'd need an idle step-up solenoid . I nearly fell out when I realized Edelbrock wants $250 for the little bugger . So I robbed the one off the original Quadrajet , bent the bracket a bit , and made an extension to bolt to the throttle out of a piece of aluminum angle . It works and you can't really see it with the air filter on .

My sheet metal brake looks a lot like this one. I bought it from Enco before they were absorbed by The Borg.

I also have small one a lot like this.

You can generate an amazing amount of force with a bench vise. I think the last use was for breaking 5 pound lead bars down to a size that would fit in my melting pots. Not easy, but virtually dustless. I don't recall if I got it from Grizzly or from an ebay seller, but I do still use it. Its got removable fingers amazingly enough so it can be used as a proper box brake if needed. I used to use it a lot for bending stainless steel L shaped pins, but now I use small a roll bender for that. Something like this.

Here is a shorter link: Round pin for finger loops, and acute angle pin/block for L bends. Also works on very small flat stock, but I use it mostly for round pull pins for casting molds. Its not a high quality tool, but it works better than improvised ones I made int he past. I could certainly make one better, but its a time and work thing.

I once had a brake like this, and I just clamped random pieces of scrap metal to it for things that wouldn't work with the stock "bar."

I gave that one to my dad when I bought the Tennsmith in the first link.

I've also done a ton of work with a couple of these.

I bent a lot of stuff, by clamping it in a vise and beating on it with a hammer, and I have multiple actual presses in the shop with which I can utilize all kids of bending jigs. Amazingly I mostly use them for pressing. 6 ton arbor press, 12 ton and 20 ton hydraulic press, and a couple smaller arbor presses that are part of a product development project. The capability of a press is not to be dismissed however. I think one of the first projects I worked on with help from this group was an electrical box cover with a recessed flat panel in the center for mounting optical emitters and sensors so casual pedestrian traffic would be less likely to wear and abrade the lenses. It was just a metal plate with a hole in the middle and a smaller plate to press into the hole forming the recess in the plate. That would have been back in the early/mid 90s.

I've successfully made U-bolts out of 4140 with a bored out steel bar and a bench vise, but who hasn't right?

The classic barn roofers brake. LOL. I have clamped a long sheet of metal to steel side frame of a trailer with bits and pieces of whatever heavy metal I had at hand. Clamped more the other moving section, and bent the whole darn thing by brute force.

Another time I made a crude jig out of plywood and 2 by 4s and then pressed a piece of aluminum sheet into the gap with the edge of a front loader bucket.

You do what you gotta do.

My sheet metal brake looks a lot like this one. I bought it from Enco before they were absorbed by The Borg.

[[[ Lucky you! ]]]

I also have small one a lot like this.

You can generate an amazing amount of force with a bench vise.

-------------------- I measured my 4" bench vise at about 1000 Lbs with one hand turning the handle; the vise isn't a good one and might break from too much force. The Wilton vise on my mill reaches the same pressure one-handed. The load cell reads to 10,000 Lbs.

I had nice Pexto shear and Roper-Whitney finger brake in my model shop at Mitre but they occupied a lot of floor space themselves plus more for the workpiece. There was also a well made Taiwanese version of the 3-in-1 sheet metal machine on a cart. After long consideration I decided on buying a CM

3-in-1 for myself, knowing that they can be difficult to keep adjusted and don't work well at their rated thickness capacity. For electronic housings it's better with 0.050" 5052 and easy with 0.030" unmarked Al, for which I bought these:

press into a 3/16" punched hole. If they fall out you can whack the hole with a hammer to shrink it. They are far superior to sheet metal screws.

The female die is one piece and won't accommodate adjacent bends in both directions so for the second direction I clamp the flange to the edge of the table with a thick bar, bend it down by hand and use a hardwood block held end grain to the metal to hammer the bend flat and square.

Never measured mine. The Columbia was used for various pressing operations before it was given to me. I have used it for light pressing operations myself, but I cleaned the lead screw up last year to remove the bind points from heavy pressing done by a previous owner.

My Uncle Paul (RIP) looked at it, and smiled. "Oh, a Columbia Bench Press. We had those all over the shop at Donn Products." (Bought out by USG.)

When I massaged it I also gave it a new just slightly longer handle made out of 4140HT.

The Harbor Freight dual swivel action is a freaking beast. I'm sure some day, I'll break the castings, but so far its never met a cheater bar it didn't like.

I'd love to have a shear, but for that sort of work a large format CNC router would probably be more useful for me long term. Yeah I know about floor space. I do begrudge those counter weights on the brake when I am going to the back corner work bench in the shop where I test molds. I always have to remember to sway so I don't walk into the bars.

There was also a well made Taiwanese version of the

Most control cabinets I see these days, unless they are actual commercial J-Boxes, are pretty thin.

I've not used a Riv-Nut in a long time.

I'd love to have a shear, but for that sort of work a large format CNC router would probably be more useful for me long term. Yeah I know about floor space. I do begrudge those counter weights on the brake when I am going to the back corner work bench in the shop where I test molds. I always have to remember to sway so I don't walk into the bars.

[[[ I made some parts on a Tennsmith when the big Niagara was booked solid and thought it was too big and awkward to precisely align the bend line. Bent edges were supposed to be accurate to 1/32". ]]]

I've not used a Riv-Nut in a long time.

-------------------------------------- The original and common name is Pem nuts. A very talented mechanical engineer at Segway didn't know about press-in nuts and added a lot of complexity to a robot control enclosure I was to build so it could be bolted completely shut, until I showed him an installed sample. I use them wherever a nut would be difficult to install or tighten. The milling vise installs them squarely without scratching the sheet metal.

For completeness in case someone digs this thread up 20 years from now and has a question, a corner notcher goes with a finger brake if you are folding up boxes. This assumes people are still making things manually by then. They might have machines that create whatever they imagine, or have fallen back to wood and stone.

Mine is so old it's just a Whitney, no Roper. Newer models may be rated for one-side nibbling as well.

Actually I have machines now that create whatever I imagine, the process is just tedious.

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Much of the structure of a B-17 bomber was made from 0.040" aluminum (I measured). The wing skin of the Zero was 0.025" thick.

I've cut a 4" hole for conduit in a JIC box so I know about their steel. I was inside the box along with a Milwaukee D handle drill that when the hole saw jammed would coast half way around after releasing the trigger, no matter what part of me might be in the way.

On 6/30/2023 10:44 PM, Bob La Londe wrote: [...]

Joe Pie's video:

So begins one of the most fast & furious thread hijackings. Two on topic replies & 9 OT.

So begins one of the most fast & furious thread hijackings. Two on topic replies & 9 OT.

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So? I told the OP all I know and he hasn't been blocked from asking followup questions.

The Tennsmith is adjustable, and should be. You can adjust stock thickness and finger set back. I rarely take the time, because the things I do with it aren't super critical, but I do when they are. If you have the machine adjusted properly the sharpness of the corners is dictated by the radius on the tips of the fingers and their condition.

I actually go the other way fairly often sandwiching solid cardboard on top with greater set back to create a larger radius. I also have plans to (like I'll ever have time) to make a set of large radius finger tips for braking thicker (.125) aluminum sheet without tearing or stopping mid bend to anneal. My tentative plan is to section some round steel pipe/tube for this purpose. In some applications the work hardening is desirable... upto a point.... er... I mean radius, as long as it stops short of material damage.

Thanks everyone.

I was going to make one, but at the last minute I added a spindle spider to my Little Machine Shop order, only because I've never owned one and figure a nice clean perfect first one would be better, and I can make new ones as needed from here on out.

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.

So what did you get? An outboard support spider or a chuck spider?

Darren Harris Staten Island, New York

Yeah. The way they do it by replacing one of the spindle nuts is a very clean way to get the job done. That's a "little" tough for a beginner, but it sure would have been a great educational experience.