The Home Machinist!

The link belt for the cables is a nice idea! Thanks! It's from IGUS. German made. It's rated for high temperatures, so hot chips won't melt it, and it's pretty well sealed. I was looking at cheap china chains on Amazon, but all had large spaces between the links, where swarf was sure to fall...and ...

Just read through the whole discussion. Any updates? Thanks for your interest, David... And sorry to all you guys hanging on my next move. :roll: The stand is done. Yeah! Even got shelves made for when the machine is properly placed. Also got the DRO installed. I'm using a TouchDRO unit and Amazon ...

Progress. Looks like you need more heat (amperage) for your welds. My distant guess. RussN What I need, is more skill! :mrgreen: My big fear was burn-through, because I did just that numerous times while practicing. And as you know, high amps = increased burn-through risk. Good news, I learned to f...

I've been working on making a stand...and learning how to weld. Burned me a pile of rods while practicing, and reached the point where I'm confident in strength, but my welds won't win a beauty contest. The support legs have nuts welded inside for adjustable feet. This stand is tons more sturdy than...

Still working this project... Found a suitable backplate for the Kitagawa, and machined it to fit. All good, except the chuck shows about .005" of runout when indicating a ground bar. If I remove the 2 piece jaws, and clamp the bar in the scroll jaws, the runout drops to about .002". 3 jaw...

When I had my 8X16 lathe, I perched it on top of an old trunk with wheels. When working, I sat on an elcheapo mechanics stool, with a cold beer within arms reach. It was quite comfortable and enjoyable to work this way, compared to standing up.

I understand how to machine the backplate.

I tried to clean up the surface finish, but the pitting is too deep. Oh, well. At least it's functional.

I took apart the Kitagawa chuck and all I can say is WOW! It's a real jewel on the inside. There is virtually no discernible wear, other than the black oxide coating on the pinions being slightly worn in places. I was concerned with buying a used chuck, but this thing has only seen minimal usage at ...

The bolt holes, if using a 6.25" backplate, would be quite close to the edge of the backplate.

What say ye on the back plate? Live with the smaller jobby, or hack down the larger one? I'm leaning toward the later, unless someone talks me out of it.

Bought this. Going to have to make a backplate. One issue: it's 165mm diameter, which is 6.5", and the largest backplate for similar size I've found is 6.3". I don't want the backplate inset from the body, so I may have to hack down an 8"'er. That will be a nice first real lathe proje...

Probably full of chips and dried up cutting oil in the scroll. Take apart and give good scrubbing Already did that. That's how I found the burr. The jaws are numbered, but the chuck body isn't. After trial fitting each jaw in each slot, they only fit one way, and they don't slide super smooth. The ...