Annular Milling spindle lamp

There was a few posts about annular spindle lamps in late 2020, I know it was then because I took photos of my own project when I bought a cheap selfie lamp off Amazon.

lamp link on Amazon

This year I got round to finishing the job. (Life got in the way).

Doing it was generally a lot of fun. I got to use a lot of tools; a rivnut insert, my fancy vice, milling cutters to machine the angle bracket to length, the new keyless chuck.

I also had to re-assemble the quill DRO as it fell apart when I detached it from the quill to allow the bit to be drilled. Amazingly the faceplate has three sizes of screw keeping it on.

There is an album of photos that gives the story in my albums. In case I mess posting the photos here I shall just say that the result is amazing, it seems to bend light round the chuck and leaves no shadow, only the drill or cutter leaves a shadow.

The finished photo doesn't seem to know that it has been turned on its side, although more modern forums do know. I shall take another photo and see what I can do.

I recommend this sort of thing as a great first project, much easier than power feeds and DROs.

The last photo shows the shadow with an additional local light; IKEA, about a tenner I think.

The task light produces a lot more shadow than the annular lamp. Neither is a problem and both is best. It seems to depend on where the reflections come from.