Woodturning Lathe Build Process
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Posted 17th February 2024
After pondering for a while on what to do about the tailstock body, I grabbed a bit of 32 mm brass and skimmed it down to match the bore I'd turned last last weekend.
It was turned to be a very close fit, so I could apply some superglue and push the tailstock onto the brass mandrel. It might seem a bit decadent to use brass as a turning mandrel, but (a) I've got loads of it and (b) if it works well, the mandrel will become part of the tailstock in due course, so I'm not actually wasting any brass by doing this.
Once the superglue had cured, it was just a case of more drilling and boring...
... finishing with a fairly loose bearing seat for the tailstock handwheel bearing:
The final challenge for today was breaking the superglue joint. I started by applying lots and lots of heat:
The problem with this is that brass has a higher thermal expansion coefficient that steel, so heating the assembly up probably causes it to bind more. If I were a patient man, I would have heated it up until I was sure that the superglue would have given up, then let it cool down and take it apart. The problem with that approach is that if the superglue hadn't given up, I'd have to try again. Instead, I heated it up until I was fairly sure the superglue would have given up, then I shoved a bit of bar stock down the hole and whacked it repeatedly with a club hammer until the brass bit came out.
The two pieces can now cool down overnight and then I'll think about what comes next.
Page 11 of 43
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