The adapter mounts to the rear of the faceplate and is held in place by three rather small hex head cap screws. I spun up the outboard side first and turned the lathe on at its slowest setting. A slight wobbling of the faceplate was detectable by eye and by feel. Ditto for the inboard side. For the sake of comparison, no such imbalance is detectable with my Nova chuck. I shall have to spend some time with these to determine whether or not a little shimming of the adapter will get it to run true.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Steelex Faceplate and Spindle Adapters
I received a Steelex 8-inch faceplate (D 1088) and a pair of inboard and outboard spindle adapters (D 1096 and D 1105) as a birthday gift. These were obtained from Amazon.com for substantially less than other sources (19.50 USD for the unthreaded faceplate, 7.80 USD for each adapter).
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4 comments:
My 140 was acquired(used) back in the dark ages before the Internet got rolling good. The woodworking budget was tight back then -- I could not break loose of the change to order extra faceplates and whatnot from Delta so I made a little centering jig out of wood to locate a 7/8-14 nut on a small blind pipe flange and recruited a buddy to weld up some faceplates. I also purchased several 7/8-14 "high" nuts and by turning tight fitting sacrificial tenons on my workpieces, have successfully used these nuts as a sort of threaded jam chuck. I sent that high threaded nut tip in to American Woodworker who printed it in their June 1998 issue.
Again with the jigs and buddy to weld up a couple of small tool rests from angle iron and cut off 5/8" diameter bolts. They did not work out too well because the bolt shafts are slightly undersized and have to be shimmed to lock in the banjo.
Still being too cheap to spring for a scroll chuck, I am currently close to completing a Longsworth chuck for my 140. It seems to be working out well, but has not yet been tested.
The 140 is a great little lathe, in my opinion a wise alternative to the mini-lathes that are all the rage now. Your blog is really cool, I hope other 140 owners find it and participate.
David Leard
Mobile Alabama
Thanks very much, David. I probably have that issue of AW on a shelf and will look it up one of these evenings. I'd love to hear more about your longworth too, when you complete it. One of those has been on my (ever growing) "To Do" list for awhile.
The Longsworth chuck is finished. The hardest part was center drilling the pegs that hold the work - finally made a jam chuck so I could drill them with a drill mounted in the tailstock. I happened to have an abandoned bowl roughed out and lying around, with a faceplate still attached to the bottom. Mounting it in the Longsworth - without any particular care or tweaking - it ran so true I was floored ! Probably just lucky; I haven't tried anything further.
Surely some existing mechanism inspired Longsworth. The chuck is definitely a slick design. Looks like pure genius from where I stand.
David/Mobile
Hi Dave,
I've been out of town for the holiday so I've been late getting back to things. Do you have any photos of the longworth, particularly those showing its mount to the 46-140 headstock?
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