Chuck turntable

I knocked up a little turntable to fit the four-jaw chuck and the faceplate for my lathe, as I find trying to mount items on the latter without three hands a tad difficult. Gravity helps to hold things in place a lot better when the faceplate is horizontal, and you can centre things fairly accurately before mounting on the lathe to finalise the setting. II used a piece of 3" ally mounted in the 3 jaw , faced off , skimmed the length to size, just under the diameter to fit inside the chuck mounting bolts, turned down a section at the end 72mm to be a snug fit in the back of the chuck, and chamfered the shoulder. Parted off at 35mm , faced off the remaining slug and centre drilled. At this point I must own up that I did make a mistake, I had intended to turn a spigot for the bearing from this slug, but there wasn't enough left, so had to turn up a separate spigot, from brass, instead. I then drilled and bored a 13mm hole in the piece to a suitable depth, about 10mm, to take the lower end of the spigot. Drilled 6.5mm hole through remainder for locating screw to hold spigot to base. The piece was then reversed in the chuck and the base faced off, and the centre screw hole countersunk to suit a suitable screw. The body was then mounted in the chuck and faced, centre drilled, drilled and bored out to take the bearing as a snug push fit. The brass spigot was turned to fit the bearing centre and the base , leaving a small flange between the two diameters to leave clearance between the two main components. Press fit the bearing, press in the spigot, fit the base and fix with the screw. Stick on four rubber non slip feet, job done! 

Edited By Adrian Giles on 28/03/2017 21:37:54

Nicely done, Adrian

... it's the ultimate 'Lazy Susan'

MichaelG.

Thanks Michael,

Anyone for 'horses doovers'😉

Adrian - if you could add a temporary spindle underneath so as to be able to mount it vertically - assuming it would all stay together of course - you could then see if stuff mounted on the faceplate let it run true, i.e., the faceplate was balanced, before it went on the lathe. I like the idea very much, it has set me thinking........!

Chris

ChrisH, - That was the basic idea behind it, but having the faceplate horizontal meant that it wasn't such a struggle to mount items without gravity making them difficult, without three hands. I can still see if it all runs true with a clock, and get a good idea of balance horizontally. The main advantage is with the four-jaw chuck, using two keys, it is an awful lot easier to centralise items if you can spin the chuck round to get to opposing jaws, without having to reach over the lathe to do it. I still clock and adjust once chuck or faceplate is mounted on the lathe.