turning thin discs

Jul 12, 2005 4 Replies

A while ago I had to turn a copper disc to fit the end of a hot air engine cylinder and puzzled over how to hold it. My first attempt consisted of sandwiching it with double sided tape between a flat ended mandrel held in the chuck and a thick disc on a live centre in the tailstock - this worked ok until the job warmed up a bit softening the tape. I then replaced the tape with araldite, left to cure overnight and successfully completed the job taking very light cuts.



That was about 2" in diameter and I now have to repeat the process for a 5" disc - is there a better way to securely hold the work?



TIA for any advice.


Same flat ended mandrel, then a sheet of cartridge paper or similar soaked in PVA glue, stick your disk on, leave overnight, machine then soak off in hot water.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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A cheap stainless steel bowl can be used to apply pressure from the live centre, a sheet of paper will stop the bowl edge marking the copper. All this done up against the face plate, using a ply backing is my prefered way to cut large copper disk's, for metal spinning.

Joules

I've used super-glue in the past. When the job is done, gentle heat to about

180 degrees C (or less depending on the glue) will release the disk. The best bit about it is that it is virtually instant.

Mark

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Thanks guys, plenty of food for thought there. I like the idea of backing the whole thing up with a ply face plate rather than working on an overhanging edge.

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