Faceplate, to true or not..?

For cost savings, I'd recommend a dedicated faceplate.

JD (Kentucky)

There is no adjustment for that. It's rather unlikely that it is a spindle problem in any case. The faceplates supplied with most lathes of this type is simply cast and threaded. As such, they generally have a runout problem. Unless you have a metal lathe, truing it up isn't really an option unless you take it to a machine shop. They will charge more for that than it is worth. Try buying a machined face plate. Likely that will be the fix.

"Bart V" wrote: (clip) 3) or take the easy way out and glue a piece of hardwood on the face

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes, that is the best, and simplest, answer. Actually, for a lot of turning, you don't have to do anything at all. When you part off the work, it will be true, leaving behind a wedge-shaped piece.

Hi Bart,

#5. ? Take an even easier way out. Use a cheap tap or make your own from a bolt and thread a disc of MDF or similar density timber on the spindle and true it if you must. The workpiece will self-true anyway. Look in the archives for details.

BTW, the Palm Beach society docs. (liposuctionists) here-bouts refer to their work in full page ads as "Liposculpture". This area is God's waiting room. Like your faceplate, why they bother being trued up with Lipo or Botox (or machining) is beyond me. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

FWIW, I couldn't agree more. Most faceplates are just cast iron junk, so there is no chance of them being "true". Since we aren't grinding out wood to machinist's tolerances, I wouldn't do anything unless it was a huge problem.

I can tell you that if you do get a really out of true piece of junk faceplate, there is an easy way to true it up. I had one that was given to me as the owner was so pissed he bought some of those nice (Oneway?) machined faceplates.

Here's what I did, BUT I AM NOT RECOMMENDNIG THIS TO ANYONE. I mounted the faceplate on my Jet mini, and set the lathe on its lowest speed. I held my 4 1/2" grinder >under< the faceplate so that if it grabbed a little it would take the grinder away from me.

I very carefully took a little material off the outside of the faceplate until it was true to my spindle. It didn't take much. Working on the face of the faceplate, I held the top of the wheel at about 9 o'clock and carefully ground the slow spinning faceplate true. This took a little longer, but with patience was easy to do.

The resulting surface, while true was really rough. I took one of my belt sanders and dressed the edge perpendicular to the bed, and it looked great. It looks like a new, semi machined faceplate now.

That all being said and done, I can honestly say that I don't notice any difference when using that one or the plain jane cast iron factory pieces I have bought over the years.

In the end, I wouldn't bother with any truing unless it was just about unusable.

Robert

MDF - hum - ok. Didn't know it was strong enough for shear forces.

Why flip it over ?! - it is likely flat to flat better than you can unless it is on a mill or large steel lathe.

For years I screwed a block on and make a chuck or a jam rod for a bowl foot.....

What is truing to you - round or flat face. You say perfectly flat MDF.

You can cut a taper nicely when running over the face or down a spindle. I suspect you did that or have a face plate that is off axis and you true a board to be flat to that - you then can NOT flip it over to ?true again? for what purpose I don't know.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Endowed; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.

Bart V wrote:

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you made one good decision - low speed - but you could have done much better just using your bowl gouge to cut the cast iron - HHS will cut it just fine, just keep the speed down - carbide is better if you have a carbide tool - resharpen when you are done - before I got my metal lathe I made some steel parts on my wood lathe - you don't have the rigidity of a metal lathe (your hand is not as rigid as a solid steel tool holder), but you can certainly true up or round off something.

just permanently affix the disk to a cheap faceplate - you can buy from me, make your own, or sometimes the faceplates for your lathe are really cheap anyway. for $5 or $6, it's just not worth hassling with

bill