Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

All discussion about lathes including but not limited to: South Bend, Hardinge, Logan, Monarch, Clausing and other HSM lathes, including imports

Moderators: GlennW, Harold_V

Post Reply
User avatar
SteveHGraham
Posts: 7788
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:55 pm
Location: Florida

Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by SteveHGraham »

This week I saw a machining video of particular interest to me. My lathe is big, and the faceplate is the size of a pizza. The chucks are heavy, and I don't like changing them. Tom Lipton did a video in which he used a miniature faceplate that he holds in a chuck.

He calls the faceplate a "pallet." It's just a rectangular piece of aluminum with a bunch of 10-32 tapped holes. He has a miniature clamping set with 10-32 screws. He puts the aluminum in his chuck, faces it to get it square with the lathe, and puts parts on it.

Lipton uses a 6-jaw chuck, and he removes two jaws so he can hold rectangular items.

Here's what I'm thinking: why couldn't I rig up something that works with my 3-jaw chuck?

Most lathes have pretty small spindle bores. Mine is a little over 2", so it seems to me that if I mounted an aluminum pallet on the end of a 2" shaft, I could grip the shaft in my chuck and hold it securely enough for it to work. When you hold a 1" shaft, it's not very secure, but 2" is another story. Alternatively, I could make a pallet with three cavities in the back to fit my chuck jaws. That would be simpler than attaching a pallet to a bar. I could do that in about 45 minutes on the rotary table.

The aluminum wouldn't be cheap. I'd need something at least 2" thick, to make room for the jaw cavities.

Maybe the most intelligent thing would be to forget the 3-jaw and just put it in my 4-jaw, which is the default chuck anyway.



He made me feel pretty bad about my "low budget" 3-jaw chuck.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
User avatar
SteveHGraham
Posts: 7788
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:55 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by SteveHGraham »

He provided a link to a company that makes miniature clamps, and he said he made his own. It looks like another company, Mitee-Bite, makes small clamps, too, and they take up very little room.

None of the prefab clamps are cheap.

http://www.rwlsystems.com/clamps.html

https://www.miteebite.com/products/compact-toe-clamps/

I was wrong about the aluminum cost. You can pick up a block on Ebay for maybe thirty bucks, which is not too bad.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
User avatar
ctwo
Posts: 2996
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:37 pm
Location: Silly Cone Valley

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by ctwo »

I've also chucked smaller chucks in a chuck... but because I've seen other's do it...

And I might just turn a round shoulder on a thicker piece of plate for gripping. I suspect you want to test your tig skills and weld a 2" piece, but just turn (or RT) a step that is 6" diameter or larger to grip... then face the other side... or just get a round plate. I bought some round cutoffs for this.
Standards are so important that everyone must have their own...
To measure is to know - Lord Kelvin
Disclaimer: I'm just a guy with a few machines...
Magicniner
Posts: 532
Joined: Thu May 30, 2013 4:40 am

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by Magicniner »

SteveHGraham wrote: The aluminum wouldn't be cheap.
I've held back but quit feeding straight lines will ya!
:D
User avatar
SteveHGraham
Posts: 7788
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:55 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by SteveHGraham »

ctwo wrote:just turn (or RT) a step that is 6" diameter or larger to grip... then face the other side... or just get a round plate. I bought some round cutoffs for this.
That makes a lot more sense.

I was surprised to learn how expensive the clamps were. A set for a Bridgeport is dirt cheap, but little ones cost a lot of money. Tom Lipton said he made his. That must have taken a while. I wonder if he hardened them.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
User avatar
mklotz
Posts: 428
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2003 11:35 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Contact:

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by mklotz »

You might want to take a look at my version of a miniature faceplate made for model engine work...

http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/5c-i ... able-27308

As it stands probably smaller than what you want but there are a few ideas there that might be helpful and scaling it larger shouldn't be a problem.
Regards, Marv

Home Shop Freeware
http://www.myvirtualnetwork.com/mklotz
User avatar
SteveHGraham
Posts: 7788
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 7:55 pm
Location: Florida

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by SteveHGraham »

Impressive work.
Every hard-fried egg began life sunny-side up.
User avatar
BadDog
Posts: 5131
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 8:21 pm
Location: Phoenix, AZ

Re: Pallet "Faceplate" for Lazy Machinists

Post by BadDog »

I have no idea what you might have access to, but for a while I had pretty open access to the guy in charge of cleaning out abandoned tooling and what not at Honeywell. Apparently he had a deal with them that the remove anything they want, then he would go in and empty a building of anything left behind leaving it ready for whatever new purpose they had in mind. Not sure the exact details, which were no doubt more involved than that, but the net effect was that he got a lot of cool stuff over time. That includes my commercial high density storage cabinets (Lista et al), some metrology gear, parallel boxes and knees, all sorts of stuff. Part of our relationship was a sort of quid pro quo. He gave me first/early access and let me prowl his scrap bins in exchange for me helping him understand some of the stuff he had acquired, and in some cases connecting him with folks who could use it. Hard to search for comps or buyers when you don't know what it is, and he knew basically nothing of machining since his main deal was office equipment.

But the relevant point here is that part about letting me go through his scrap bins. Companies like Honeywell generate TONS of custom fixture and setup tooling over the years. Going through bins he had already decided were "scrap", I acquired a lot of perfectly good ring gauges, parallels, and fixture plates which I stripped for the precision plates themselves, and LOTS of small strap clamps (lots of 1/4" down to #8 with some larger and smaller) and related hardware including cam locks, toe clamps, etc. I've got quite a drawer full of that stuff, most he just gave to me, or if I got too greedy made me pay current scrap prices by the pound. If you can find a way to get hooked into that scrap chain, it's amazing what you can harvest for very little money.

I also got some 1"x2"x12" Brown & Sharp Parallels (amazing how often they are useful!) from that bin, and a 12"x12"x12" Taft Pierce angle plate (got to be over 70lbs) just before it got dumped into the bin. It was fully hand scraped on all surfaces and in a custom velvet lined (mahogany?) box. Sadly the box was broken, splintered and destroyed, but it did protect that the angle plate that was shortly to be on it's way to China. I couldn't begin to describe all the cool stuff, and I sure wish I still had that connection, but he changed his business model and no longer gets that stuff.
Russ
Master Floor Sweeper
Post Reply