Extension for my Midi Lathe

[Keith Westfall]

I had decided to make a couple of pepper mills for Christmas, but soon realised that my MidiLathe just wouldn't do a 12" mill. I could turn it, just couldn't drill it :(

So, a bit of wood (oak because I had it) and a bit of time, and this is what I ended up with. Worked very well and got them both drilled!! I made a jig to go between the lathe bed to help with the line up and it seemed to work.

Anyway, it was a fix for me and enabled me to work toward completion - hopefully before Christmas...

It may not be a permanent addition but it will do when I need it.

klw

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[John Keeton]

Keith, there have been a couple of these posted in the past, and I think this is just a great idea. One of the prior postings was done for outboard turning on the end of the lathe - something I might consider someday.

Nice work!

[Bill Bolen]

Boy oh boy, turners are an inventive bunch! Nice work-around. Hope you get those tall mills done in time!!

[Tom Hartranft]

[QUOTE=Keith Westfall;1834038] I made a jig to go between the lathe bed to help with the line up and it seemed to work. QUOTE]


Keith ... looks like a functional addition to your Delta 460. I have a 460 also. Please add a pic / description of the alignment jig you made. thanks.

Tom

[Keith Westfall]

I ran this piece of oak through the planner until it snugly fit in the lathe bed. Cross pieces to align it to the top of the bed. Clamped it all together during glue up of the extension. Seemed to work. Sorry, should have rotated the pictures...



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I was able to get these done - no finish yet...

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[Tom Hartranft]

Good alignment idea. After seeing your extension earlier, I went ahead and made the pieces for a 12" extension for my lathe this week ... rails, vertical supports, cross supports ... and got hardware to assemble it. Now, I'll make an alignment jig similar to yours to align the pieces before drilling final assembly holes.


Thanks for sharing.


Tom

[Keith Westfall]

Good luck Tom.

One thing on mine that I wasn't careful enough with, was the depth of the notch for the top rails. Mine was off just a bit and it's noticeable when the tail stock slides back. I had to loosen the bottom lock washer just a bit and it works fine.

Can't think of a way to fix it, so will just live with it!!

klw

[Tom Hartranft]

Yeah, I expect that my top rails won't exactly match the cast iron top rails of the lathe bed ... just good enough to be able to snug up the tailstock clamp when I occasionally need to use the extension for an especially long project. I also wondered about the durability of the sliding metal tail stock over the hardwood extension rails and looked into stainless steel shim stock like this ... http://www.amazon.com/Steel-Stock-Sheets-0-012-Thick/dp/B003A03JA0/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_10.

If you ever want to tackle your notch depth, maybe you could rout a sliver off of the top or bottom of your wooden extension rail and then cover with an appropriate thickness of stainless steel shim stock as I see online that it comes in various thicknesses. I'm thinking that the flat shimstock sheets could be glued to the wooden rails and held in place till dry using long flat clamps like cawls to get a super flat surface.

Tom