Chuck/face plate removal

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TOF

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Question regarding the removal of a face plate. Tonight I was trying to remove the face plate from my lathe and was having trouble being that it was too tight. I had to bang it (Carefully) to loosen it up, but I got it off. This is something that I am not to comfortable with because I do not want to damage either the face plate and/or the lathe. Not sure I would do this with a chuck?

Is there some type of lubricant that you add prior to screwing onto your lathe so that the removal will be easier?

Thanks for any insight!
 
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Fay Prozora

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That happened to me awhile back also. I don't use the faceplate any more as I use a chuck. The chuck some times stick too but a light tap with a rubber mallet gets it off and I too will make a little washer for my headstock so it won't happen again. Even a rubber mallet can do some damage to some tools. Fay
 

monophoto

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Spindle washers can solve this problem, but they can introduce a new concern - runout.

The key is that the washer must be absolutely dead flat. If not, it will cause the faceplate (or chuck, or whatever is screwed onto the lathe spindle) to be slightly off-axis. This is a particular concern with shop-made washers from things like coffee can lids, or the plastic shipping containers for income tax software - quality control on those is uninspiring, and the thickness is often not uniform.

Another solution is to have a hole in the edge of the faceplate that will accommodate a lever of some sort. If you are using a glue-block between the faceplate and the blank, just drill a hole in the side that will accommodate your knockout bar.

Or, you can use a wrench to loosen the faceplate. If your lathe has a spindle lock, one wrench is sufficient, but if not, you will need a second wrench on the spindle. Strap wrenches are often sufficient for this and won't damage either the faceplate or the spindle.
 

low_48

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Word of caution, a spindle lock and an indexing pin are not the same. An indexing pin is usually very small, and can be sheared off with heavy force.
 

SteveG

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As Jim mentioned in the post prior to mine, you can try avoiding the "lockup" that tends to happen with the items mounted to the lathe. I deal with this by polishing the contact surfaces, then coating with wax. Carefully tighten the faceplate so it is not overtight. This has worked for me, and when it is time to remove the FP, I can do it by hand.
 

monophoto

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What Jim and Steve have been saying too politely - don't spin the faceplate on so fast that it snaps against the spindle. Easy does it - finger tight is tight enough. If you jam the faceplate (or chuck) onto the spindle, you will have difficulty getting it off, and you take a chance of damaging the spindle threads.
 

TOF

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Thank you everyone. Still learning and all responses help a bunch. I'm thinking I probably spun it too quick and snapped it to the spindle as Louie suggested not to do. I will get a washer and be more careful as not to tighten too much.
 

shastastan

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I believe that the nylon washers that you buy for this purpose are quite different than what you might cut out from a plastic lid. I can say this because I use plastic lids for mixing glue, etc.. The nylond washer on my lathe is much firmer than the plastic in the lids. YMMV
 

jttheclockman

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a coffee can plastic top and cutting into a washer. The amount of mating surface is small. I have one on my lathe for quite some time. Learned that trick from a long time well known turner. The key is to not have lettering or any raised emblem on it. Must be flat. AS far as introducing runout because of different thickness is not true. How do you know that chuck was machined to tight tolerances that match the spindle face??? We are talking a wood lathe. Each chuck is different.

Not jamming a chuck on is a good thought but things happen such as a catch which will now introduce more force onto that chuck so it can lock.
 

lwalper

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a coffee can plastic top and cutting into a washer. The amount of mating surface is small. I have one on my lathe for quite some time. Learned that trick from a long time well known turner. The key is to not have lettering or any raised emblem on it. Must be flat. AS far as introducing runout because of different thickness is not true. How do you know that chuck was machined to tight tolerances that match the spindle face??? We are talking a wood lathe. Each chuck is different.

Not jamming a chuck on is a good thought but things happen such as a catch which will now introduce more force onto that chuck so it can lock.

Ditto that. I never "snap" my chuck or faceplate onto the spindle, but the action of turning will certainly tighten it beyond what will come loose with my bare hands. That spindle lock and something to increase your leverage will get it off. For the chuck I usually use the wrench as a bit of a handle. It's 5-6 inches long and introduces just enough torque to remove the chuck.

Runout should also not be a problem unless you remove your work and try to re-chuck it. As long as leave the project on the lathe you'll be turning on the center you initially created when you began the project -- even if it is "off" a little bit it will still be on center for that project.
 

Rich L

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The runout question is a matter of how much runout you can tolerate, not whether or not it is there. Every lathe, wood, metal, cheap or high-precision, has runout. The crappier the mating surfaces are, the worse the runout will be and repeatability in remounting chucks will suffer. If you add a crappy washer your runout will be worse and remounting will be worse. A consistent tightening torque in remounting chucks is key to repeatability. Yeah, we're talking turning pens here but some folks like precision and repeatability regardless if the medium is wood or metal or plastic. The question about how do you know that the mating surfaces are machined to tight tolerances is answered by clocking the runout when they are assembled. That's what counts and reassembling consistently is what counts. You will not have any significantly different runout if you reassemble consistently. I am one that thinks there is everything wrong with coffee can and plastic washers between chuck mating surfaces - but that's just me. The solutions involving a coating of grease, wax, oil are, in my mind, the ways to overcome the mating surface parting problem - not by adding an imprecise boundary between them. Adding washers as mentioned will introduce more error and it is unlikely that the added error will compensate for what's already there.

Cheers folks,
Rich
 

jttheclockman

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It is a wood lathe Rich not a metal lathe. If you are looking for precision of that caliber than man there is alot of places for it to go wrong:) I do not think there is any item made from wood that needs that kind of precision being wood itself is an impure item that moves. Just saying.
I respect your opinion though. I will continue to use my coffee can washer. :)
 
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Rich L

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It is a wood lathe Rich not a metal lathe. If you are looking for precision of that caliber than man there is alot of places for it to go wrong:) I do not think there is any item made from wood that needs that kind of precision being wood itself is an impure item that moves. Just saying.
I respect your opinion though. I will continue to use my coffee can washer. :)

Oh, John, if you only knew :) ... take a look at some ornamental turning. There are wood lathes from 200 years ago that maintain runout and concentricity below .001" I know, I have one or two of them. Just as an example of what I'm doing in that realm is captured in the picture (the vertical picture). It's an experiment I did to see if I could make a barrel out of two different kinds of wood (boxwood and blackwood) where the "ornamental" cuts were precise enough to keep a perfectly (!) consistent pattern across and around the barrel. First of all, the two pieces had to be concentric to about .001 and then runout had to be around .001 and no more. These figures had to be attained because of the shallow cuts into both layers. Runout greater than .001 could get magnified ten-fold and that error became an easily visible departure from the uniform pattern I wanted. This piece is a reject because on the other side (the horizontal picture) you can see that the "holes" are different sized. This is all done on "wood" equipment, not metal lathes. This kind of precision decoration in wood is prevalent in the ornamental wood turning world.

Granted, the typical wood lathe that a lot of turners use is incapable of this kind of precision and repeatability but all I would say is that good machining practices and approaches will keep one's work product near the limits of what the machine can do instead of further afield. It's so easy to make the machine operate worse than designed and built.

Cheers,
Rich
 

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jttheclockman

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Rich you are doing something that is not being done by 99.9% of the people who have wood lathes. I am sure there are other tools involved that have to match the work you are achieving so good luck. I stand behind my statement as well.
 

Rich L

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Sigh. Jeez, I was hoping to not get into some kind of dispute or argument about this. Stand by what you want - I'm just giving examples of how this subject can matter. The Beall pen wizard tries to get these kind of results but the machine is not made to the same standards as some other, more expensive, equipment. To dismiss the examples, knowledge, and experience because it's not understood or impossible to do in one's shop or because only a tiny, tiny fraction of the population does it is keeping one's eyes closed to new and possibly better horizons. Ornamental turning is not an esoteric art - it's been done for centuries by thousands of people. Anyone with a simple wood lathe can make a successful stab at some of the simpler patterns. All that is needed is the lathe and a drill or Dremel. No other tools. 99.9% of the wood lathe people have those and can use them well.

Over and out.
 

jttheclockman

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Sigh. Jeez, I was hoping to not get into some kind of dispute or argument about this. Stand by what you want - I'm just giving examples of how this subject can matter. The Beall pen wizard tries to get these kind of results but the machine is not made to the same standards as some other, more expensive, equipment. To dismiss the examples, knowledge, and experience because it's not understood or impossible to do in one's shop or because only a tiny, tiny fraction of the population does it is keeping one's eyes closed to new and possibly better horizons. Ornamental turning is not an esoteric art - it's been done for centuries by thousands of people. Anyone with a simple wood lathe can make a successful stab at some of the simpler patterns. All that is needed is the lathe and a drill or Dremel. No other tools. 99.9% of the wood lathe people have those and can use them well.

Over and out.

Hey Rich have you seen the pens I have made????? I did them on my jet wood lathe with a plastic washer between the chuck and spindle. Pretty ornamental. All came out fine to me. I am just saying if people want to listen to you then so be it but i am not. no debate here. maybe there are thousands more people that think like you and have that fear. It is of my opinion that to combat the chuck lockup that a washer placed in between will help. That is all. Do it, don't do it fine with me what do I care???:)
 
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