Special faceplate for lathe

[dparker]

Hello All: Several years ago I met Mr. Marlyn Hadley (1973) at Antique Powerland in Brooks Oregon. He had a whole table of model engines that he had built, mostly from old patents and pictures that he had taken at the Smithsonian and other places. As I understand it he even made his own patterns and had castings made at a foundry near his home in Salem, Oregon. After several years apparently his family talked him into making up a booklet about his models and I bought a few copies and have enjoyed them, no plans, just pictures of his engines and a description of what they are. He passed away in 2006 but his collection is seems to be on permanent display at Antique Powerland. The collection was not shown at Gears this year as in the past. In his book MODEL MACHINES he had the last section as a guide of a few of his jigs and tooling he made and used to help him do the machining.

One of the fixtures is this special V Block faceplate. The V can be moved radially in or out (measured with a dial indicator if desired) to help make eccentrics and off center turnings. It can also be turned over and be a flat mounting for facing and boreing jobs, a extension can make this mounting surface longer. The faces can be drilled and tapped for several different desired setups. The block rides on a key and is held in place with machined slides that when tightened down will hold the block securely in place. A socket head cap screw is placed at the outer end of the travel to keep the block from dropping off when loosened or temporarily removed to allow the block to be turned over.
My plate is 3/4" thick, and 9" in diameter bolted onto a homemade spindle adapter threaded to match my lathe. There is a 1/2" plate that acts as a counterbalance for the "V" block weight. This may help somebody with doing some special turning. I have never seen this made up into a article other than in his book. There are some other tooling tips in the back of the book under Machine Shortcuts. I found a copy of his book on Alibris but didn't realize how rich I was until I noticed how much it was worth,WOW!! Now I kind of wish I hadn't given my older edition away several years ago, but it went to a young man in High School that seemed to be interested.

After looking at all the tooling Marv K. has shown in the past and just lately I want to make many of those instead of work on the "Miser" I am starting. (I will have questions!)
Don

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi Don,
We have a similar thing called a keats angle plate, that bolts to your faceplate.
http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/cgi-bin/s...o.uk/&WD=keats&PN=ANGLE_PLATES.html#a688#a688
But not quite as versatile as what you have made there.
There are a lot of old techniques and fixtures that are only now being rediscovered and put into modern day use. I, just like you have old books, that if I made all the gadgets and bits in them would keep me going until I snuff it.

I see that you have the obligatory can of WD40. The manufacturers of that stuff have really cornered the market, I think every household in the civilised world has a can somewhere on the premises, and yours has the 50% super expansion upgrade. I also notice you have fitted the patented, get it into anywhere, long nosed, dispersal nozzle. Mine came off within the first ten minutes when it tried to tangle with a long piece of ali swarf.

I think Marvs marvels are delaying a lot of the engine builds, trying to keep up with all his little gadgets is getting to be a bit of a problem.

John

 

[georgeseal]

And heaven forbid he built all those engines on a Craftsman ( Atlas ) Lathe
George