Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

Camlock chucks

(1/7) > >>

AdeV:
Me again with more silly questions  :wave:

Having made a moderately accurate ER32 chuck out of aluminium the other week, and determining that it improves the accuracy of my lathe by almost an order of magnitude (especially when it comes to turning tapers), plus the fact when I put the 3-jaw back on last night I had the devil of a struggle to get it to run even close to true (I think the chuck shrunk more than the lathe in the cool overnight weather, so it was a bitch to get the registration all lined up - normally it just slides right back on like it's been there all it's life), I've decided that I think I'd like to convert my spindle nose to a camlock system. This will basically involve making a thin-ish backplate with the camlock pins on it, which will remain on the lathe all of the time.

Then, in theory, I can just buy camlock chucks & fit them straight on without thinking about it. You may laugh now.  :lol:

So... firstly, what's the most common camlock setup to use? 3-pin? 4? 6? I plan to run chucks up to maybe 10" diameter (8" most likely), plus maybe collet chucks of unknown size etc. My spindle bore is 1.75" approx and my max RPMs are 670, so I don't see the need to run anything under a 6" chuck. I do want to get away from the tedious Edgwick chuck changing procedure. Now that I know my spindle is pretty good, I'm happy to bolt a piece of steel or cast iron up, turn it & never remove it again (hopefully!)

Any thoughts gratefully received on this subject (including, if applicable "for god's sakes don't go camlock!"  :zap:)

AdeV:
PS: Its more important to me that whatever system I use, will mount as close as possible to parallel with the lathe; a smidge of runout I can handle by using a 4-jaw more often; or a 6-jaw if I go that route.

Pete.:
The camlock pins are on the chucks, not the nose. The pins are not so complicated but I wouldn't fancy trying to make the retainers that go in the spindle nose.

John Rudd:
Ade,
My SPG tools lathe uses the D1-4 method....I quite like the idea versus the M39 x 4 thread on my Chester 9 x 20 or the silly 6 mm stud mount method on my Sieg C3.....

Horses for courses tho'

However the pins are on the chuck not the spindle mount....but you do what works for you.. :lol:

Spurry:
My little Harrison M250 has a spindle bore of 35mm and a D1-3 nose, so would expect your size of lathe to accept a D1-4 or 6 without to much trouble.
The size you decide on will be governed by your supply of appropriately sized chucks, as much as anything.
The amount of work in a lathe D1-* spindle nose should not be underestimated. It's bad enough to try and draw one, without actually making it.
A very interesting build thread though, if you go ahead.
Pete

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page