making wooden faceplates

Re: making wooden faceplates

Fred in NC

>I had failures doing just that, the nut came out.

I would make sure there is no grease on the nut (from manufacturing) by wiping real well with DNA. Then rough the area that you are going to glue to give the glue some bite.

Re: making wooden faceplates

Andy in Raleigh

>I might also make the recess I spoke of *very* snug, to the point that it almost cuts (or more correctly compresses) threads the first time I put it on. One thing I did notice is that the nuts are not as tall as the faceplate collar. I could go in the other dirction also and add a collar that the spindle slips through behind the nut. Just another little piece of scrap.

Re: making wooden faceplates

Fred in NC

>Andy, I bought a 1-8 tap. I use hardwood, drill to 7/8" and tap the hole. I put glue on the threads to harden them, and re-tap. Two pieces of 3/4" glued cross grain works well.

Re: making wooden faceplates

Andy in Raleigh

>I saw your earlier thread on that a while back. At the time, I assumed that you did it instead of getting a metal nut to save money (or at least you would after 3 or 4 faceplates) and make construction simpler. I didn't realize that you tried the metal nuts first. Did you use epoxy? What were you spinning when you got the failure?

Re: making wooden faceplates

Fred in NC

>If I remember correctly, the piece I was turning was about 4" dia x 3". I was using 5 min epoxy. It held onto the wood ok, but came off clean of the nut. Cleaning and roughing the nut might help a lot.

Here's My Method - *PIC

Garrett in Victoria

>I've made a few including vacuum chucks, most out of 3/4 MDF, as well as regular faceplates of which one in 3/4 fir plywood about 12" diameter, and this Longworth Chuck which is 16" in diameter out of MDF. No problems.

I fasten the nut to the face plate by drilling and countersinking 4 holes through the rim of the nut and driving screws into the plate.

Here's the Longworth Chuck as an example:

When I first started, I was a little more concerned about holding power, and drilled and tapped 3 or 4 holes through the rim of the nut, drilled corresponding holes in the face-plate, and used flat-head machine screws. That's undoubtedly over-kill. On the vacuum chucks, I also use hot-glue or silicone as a sealant around the joint.

Cheers, Garrett

Re: making wooden faceplates

Barry Irby

>Why not drill some holes in the side of the nuts and insert some small rods for the epoxy to get a hold of and sandwich them between the layers? This would give some mechanical advantage to the connection. You could tap the holes and use screws.

Of course, if we make this any more complicated it would be easier and cheaper to just have a machinist weld some metal face plates.

Barry Irby

Cheap faceplates *LINK*

Fred in NC

>For minis below:


Aluminum faceplates

Re: making wooden faceplates

Andy in Raleigh

>or get the $7 aluminum jobs from Grizzly. A couple of those with shipping would be about $20, so you don't have to go to much time or expense to make this a silly endevour. It will only take about 5 minutes of actual work (plus a couple of overnight curings) to try my idea. Actually it will now be closer to 10 because I will be roughing the nut up quite a bit based on Fred's feedback. I am a little more confident after finding out he used 5 minute epoxy.

Always one more thing!

Fred in NC

>I used 5 min epoxy, that was a couple years back. Reading the labels (Walmart) I found that the strength varies with different formulas. I think the 30 min is stronger, but I don't remember and I don't have a package handy.

Walmart also has an epoxy putty.

Re: Always one more thing!

Andy in Raleigh

>Having built a couple of boats, I researched and learned quite a bit about epoxies. The stuff that cures quickly without getting really hot is not very good. I sometimes mix in some quick hardener with slow to get a mix that would set up well enough to hold things in place in under an hour, but still needed several hours to fully cure. The stuff I use now is pretty much an overnight dry and cure. I also have some filler that I mix in to get it about the consistency of vaseline for filling gaps where it would drain away.

Re: making wooden faceplates

John Lucas

>Andy

Try drilling several shallow holes in the sides of the nut rather than just roughing it up. This way the epoxy has something to flow into and hold on. Like some of the others have said I have found slow drying epoxy to be far superior to 5 minute epoxy for holding things.

Re: making wooden faceplates

John in Charlotte

>That's exactly what I do with vac. chucks, but use MDF shelf board. After threaded on my spindle, I found that a spacer made out of corian was the perfect thickness. Instead of gluing the corian spacer to the nut, I leave it free, so I can use it with all of my chucks.

Re: making wooden faceplates *LINK*

Don Henthorn

>I am sure no expert, but I am using wooden nuts glued to hardwood blocks and turned round. If you are going to be doing smaller things like goblets I sure wouldn't go larger than four inches with the faceplate. I prefer much smaller and usually glue the turning piece to a block that is from 1 1/2" to 3" in diameter. I use Tightbond and let it cure overnight. So far it has worked great for me. I usually have several pieces all glued up and ready to screw onto the spindle.


http://users2.ev1.net?~henthorn

Re: making wooden faceplates

Andy in Raleigh

>The reasons I was thinking of going a little larger was so I could use a tenon recess in the glue block and so that I will have a little lip sticking out to turn by hand when the lathe is stopped (I have a cheap import lathe with no external handwheel). I am not planning to glue up big honkin' burls or anything.

I didn't get a chance to work on it last night, but I did figure out that the nuts are of adequate size to snug up without the spindle sticking out much at all beyond them (maybe 1/8"). I thought they were short, but I just never noticed that the faceplate and spur drive I have are actually taller than required (they have threads my spindle will never reach).

-Andy

Hmmm...

Tony - Memphis

>I looked at the Home Depot in Collierville and they didn't have anything bigger than 3/4" nuts. Which Borg did you go to? We have a Lowes here too, but I haven't checked there (they torqued me, so I'm sworn off 'em for long as I can stand it anyway).

Tony

it was Lowes

Andy in Raleigh

>And the 1" was the biggest they had, but they had lots of them because they had 1" bolts in various lengths. It was in the big display with the prelabeled drawers, so my guess is that it is a standard stock item.

I get upset with some of the stores from time to time also, but personal boycots seem to cause me more problems than them.

-Andy

Re: it was Lowes

Fred in NC

>Are you planning to use a washer? Depending on your lathe, a plastic washer might save you from some trouble removing the nut/faceplate later on.

Re: it was Lowes

Andy in Raleigh

>I will use one if it proves to be a pain getting the faceplate off. That is another reason to want a 6" faceplate; with the wrench on the spindle it's pretty easy to loosen my 6" metal faceplate by hand, but I need both wrenches to get the spur drive off. Somewhere between those two extremes is the diameter at which it becomes difficult.

Ha!

Tony - Memphis

>Glad I'm not alone. Yeah, there were ten folks right behind me. I let 'em know what I think, but that's all you can do. I did get a call and an apology from the mgr. It was too late then, but yeah, there are no more little hardware places around here and Home Depot torques me too. Thanks for the info. I'll probably hit one on the way home.

Tony

Words of wisdom...

Tony - Memphis

>I had read about the sticking problems here, so when I got my chuck, I made a couple of washers from a plastic lid and they have worked very well.

Tony

PS

Tony - Memphis

>I'm from Goldsboro and have family all over. Hope to get back someday. Is your Raleigh the NC one?

Tony

Re: PS

Andy in Raleigh

>Yep - Raleigh, NC - where Barney goes to party! (the deputy, not the dinosaur).

Thanks for the tip on using a cap as a washer!