Lathe - dust control
JET mini lathe
I bought the JET to replace my Walker Turner (WT).
The WT was bought from a chap at work for ZAR500, a reasonable bargain.
Built in circa 1935, it was solid cast iron, the motor was a 1HP with oil wells above the bearings. Extremely heavy.
To get it home, we stripped it down and loaded into the back of the VW bus.
At home it was me on my own. It was cleaned up, sanded and painted with HammerRite, and I made a cover for the belts (he ran it sans covers!).
The bed was about 1300mm long. It was powerful and I ran it on the slowest speed.
A pleasure using it.
Move on a couple of years …. We are relocating to a smaller house.
Sell the WT for ZAR500, what I paid.
Invest in a smaller lathe for fun and hobby. JET has a good reputation and the price to go with it.
Built a stand for it using pine and ply.
http://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=899
All nicely sized and correct height. BUT, it needs wheels to be mobile in new garage.
No problem, fit some heavy duty hinges and wheels that can flip up out the way and it then stands on the floor.
What the bright spark design and construction ID10T did not realize - the weight of the stand PLUS the weight of the JET! I cannot lift the flipping thing up to get the wheels out! So the height is way too high.
Solution to make a small platform that just slides in underneath the lathe stand.
Now move onto current year.
Let me try and clean up an old lamp base to see how the lathe performs.
O YES it performs! Dust and shavings from my beard, down my paunch to my shoes.
The are a number of threads dealing with this on WH2. Search and read.
I still had the front piece of the WT dust unit that I built.
Hot melt glue a vacuum pipe onto it that can plug straight into the vac.
I added a long bolt onto the pipe to mount on the back of the lathe.
Test 1: nope, no good.
Added a piece of thick plastic around half the front.
Test 2: nope not much better
Move it around to the front.
Test 3: Yes much better, and not really in the way.
When moving the tool rest across the bed, the dust thing fits snugly and not in the way.
Conclusion - good option, must be movable and not permanently attached to the lathe or bench.
Next - lighting
The little lamp supplied with the JET is at the back of the lathe and does not really light up the work face.
Here it is but with the new light also on.
There is an old extendable lamp looking for a new life and home.
Stripped the electrics out and rewired with an LED light.
Drilled a couple of holes in the stand top at the back where the light can then be slotted into and moved depending on where I want it.
No pics of it working, but it makes a huge difference to the work face while turning.
So while I am fiddling around with the lathe, I looked at the chisels that were bought many moons ago.
They could with a bit of sharpening (this is all very strange territory!)
Find the old oilstone and some 123 oil.
I will avoid the detail of this exercise, and maybe there could be a sharpening thread ala Jacob
I also unpacked the box of chisels bought after we had moved and also a chuck.
They are TorkKraft but absolutely identical to Draper 58697, just different name stencil.
The weapons of mass destruction
Cheers
Phil