Lathe tooling?

[GlennW]

I have to amend the suggestion that a face plate is not often used because if you turn anything between centers you will need a faceplate and one or more driving dogs.

Not exactly true, as one can grip a piece of stock and turn a center, then use one of the jaws, which picks up the tail of the dog, to drive the work piece. It can be accomplished with either a three jaw, four jaw or a six jaw chuck. This is a pretty decent way to machine between centers, as the machined-in-place center will be dead true.

And also a good (easy) way to cut a two, three, four, or six start thread depending on the chuck being used.

[earlgo]

I like the way you gentlemen think, but there is a #3MT in the Atlas spindle and the #3 MT center that came with the lathe can be reused. Also the Atlas faceplates have 4 slots so I suppose one could index the dog tail to do multiple thread starts. However, having said that, I have never been presented with the situation of cutting multiple thread starts, so that is 'beyond my stream of consciousness' as the saying goes.

For those among you who have had to do work on the outboard end of a part that won't fit through the headstock, it is helpful to have a steady rest to support the material and a means to hold the material against the headstock center. Ergo, centers, faceplates and dogs.

The face plate is unscrewed a couple of turns, the stretchy nylon rope is tightened as best as can be done, and the faceplate screwed on tight to tighten the rope further.

Of course no one ever mentioned the technique of turning a center and using the chuck for a dog driver. One learns new things all the time. Still might be an issue on pulling the material tight against the center.

--earlgo