I need a better way to hold the bobbin

[888guitars]

Thanks again Bruce! I have wound a couple of pickups now and they are WAY better looking now that it spins true!

[Bruce Johnson]

How much is that kit?

Brad, if I remember right, that kit was around $125 total. About $85 was for the face plate, which was a large 5" one. The belt and pulleys were about $20 and the shaft was about $20. Very little labor involved in them; mostly parts and material. The timing pulleys were from McMasters, which I then reamed to 8mm bore. The shaft was 1/2" dia 303 stainless, turned down to 8mm dia on both ends.

[Busterdawg]

Forgive my ignorance but what is a "dial indicator"?

[Bruce Johnson]

Forgive my ignorance but what is a "dial indicator"?

Basically, it's a precision measuring tool that looks like a small clock. When you push on a plunger or finger on the bottom, the needle on the clock face rotates and you can read the amount that the plunger moved to very high resolution, generally 0.001" or 0.0001". In this case of measuring the wobble of a face plate, the dial indicator is mounted solidly to the frame of the winder with its plunger resting on the face surface of the face plate. You then slowly rotate the face plate by hand and the amount of wobble can be read by the movement of the needle on the clock face. That's a simplified explanation, but those are the basics. If you hear the expression "to indicate something in", it's referring to using a dial indicator to measure wobble or runout, as you adjust the wobble or runout down to zero.

Here's the Wiki entry, although it doesn't really explain the useage very well: Dial indicator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Busterdawg]

I appreciate the explanation. I also have an aluminum rectangle for a faceplate and can tell it's not true. I will either get myself a dial indicator and see if I can fix it via the method you just described or maybe contract the job out to Mr. Johnson if he is so inclined.

[Bruce Johnson]

I appreciate the explanation. I also have an aluminum rectangle for a faceplate and can tell it's not true. I will either get myself a dial indicator and see if I can fix it via the method you just described or maybe contract the job out to Mr. Johnson if he is so inclined.

Well, having a dial indicator will let you measure how much your face plate is wobbling, but you still have to have a method of correcting the wobbling. The method will depend on how the face plate is made. How is it attached to the shaft? Is it a one piece block with a drilled hole for the shaft and a setscrew? Or is it a rectangular plate screwed to a hub of some kind? If it's a plate screwed to a hub, you may be able to correct the wobble yourself using thin shims of metal or tape.

If it's a one-piece block, the way to correct it is to trim the face in a lathe. You could send it to me and I would mount it in my lathe on a piece of shaft stock to simulate the shft of your winder. Then I would use the lathe to take a truing cut across the face to remove the wobble. That would be an inexpensive job, like $10 plus postage. Let me know if you want me to do that.

[Joe Gwinn]

I appreciate the explanation. I also have an aluminum rectangle for a faceplate and can tell it's not true. I will either get myself a dial indicator and see if I can fix it via the method you just described or maybe contract the job out to Mr. Johnson if he is so inclined.

I would take Bruce up on his offer. There is no way you can do as good a job as Bruce can with his machine shop.

[Bruce Johnson]

Another update on the same subject:
Here's a simple winder face plate that I made up for Chris Carter, another example of how they can be made. This is made from a slug of 6061 aluminum 3" dia x 1" thick. I cleaned up the OD and both faces on the lathe, and drilled and reamed the bore to 12mm. The "setscrew" is a 10-32 x 1" long socket head cap screw. On the face are two pairs of 4-40 tapped holes for mounting the 50mm and 52mm bobbins that he uses. The last step was to round off and polish the outer edge so it won't snag.

I charged him $40. The aluminum slug cost me about $5.

[big_teee]

Another update on the same subject:
Here's a simple winder face plate that I made up for Chris Carter, another example of how they can be made. This is made from a slug of 6061 aluminum 3" dia x 1" thick. I cleaned up the OD and both faces on the lathe, and drilled and reamed the bore to 12mm. The "setscrew" is a 10-32 x 1" long socket head cap screw. On the face are two pairs of 4-40 tapped holes for mounting the 50mm and 52mm bobbins that he uses. The last step was to round off and polish the outer edge so it won't snag.

I charged him $40. The aluminum slug cost me about $5.

Very nice Machining. I think he got a bargain.
Terry

[StarryNight]

Another update on the same subject:
Here's a simple winder face plate that I made up for Chris Carter, another example of how they can be made. This is made from a slug of 6061 aluminum 3" dia x 1" thick. I cleaned up the OD and both faces on the lathe, and drilled and reamed the bore to 12mm. The "setscrew" is a 10-32 x 1" long socket head cap screw. On the face are two pairs of 4-40 tapped holes for mounting the 50mm and 52mm bobbins that he uses. The last step was to round off and polish the outer edge so it won't snag.

I charged him $40. The aluminum slug cost me about $5.

I can see the advantage to this design would be using both faces for different bobbin templates. It must weigh considerably more!

Bruce, I'm just starting to learn to use my new hobby lathe and was wondering how you machined the two faces to be parallel?
thanks
tony

[copperheadroads]

Another update on the same subject:
Here's a simple winder face plate that I made up for Chris Carter, another example of how they can be made. This is made from a slug of 6061 aluminum 3" dia x 1" thick. I cleaned up the OD and both faces on the lathe, and drilled and reamed the bore to 12mm. The "setscrew" is a 10-32 x 1" long socket head cap screw. On the face are two pairs of 4-40 tapped holes for mounting the 50mm and 52mm bobbins that he uses. The last step was to round off and polish the outer edge so it won't snag.

I charged him $40. The aluminum slug cost me about $5.

i have not forgot about your face plates Bruce when i build my next winder probably in the spring ,i will be giving you a shout ....

[Bruce Johnson]

I can see the advantage to this design would be using both faces for different bobbin templates. It must weigh considerably more!

Bruce, I'm just starting to learn to use my new hobby lathe and was wondering how you machined the two faces to be parallel?
thanks
tony

Tony;

Yeah, I guess you could flip it over and work the other side if you wanted to.....but you could also put 8 or more patterns on the front face, just rotating them around.

Here's the sequence for making it:
1.) I put the slug in the lathe in a 3-jaw self-centering chuck. I have the jaws installed in the reversed position, so the high steps are outboard. I seat the back face of the slug against the steps in the jaws. For you machinists, the chuck is a 10" Buck Set-Tru, and I've dialed it in to within a thousandth.
2.) I true up face of the slug, which will become the back face of the face plate. Because the steps of the jaws only extend out less than half of the thickness of the slug, I also do a clean up cut on the OD back as far as I can reach without hitting the jaws. I use a HSS tool bit angled in to reach. It's ground with about 1/32" radius on the tip to get a smooth finish on the aluminum. Before unchucking, I cut a quick small bevel on the outer edge with a beveling tool bit.
3.) I unchuck the slug, flip it over, and re-chuck it. I make sure there are no chips on the clampng surfaces, and that freshly-machined back face is seated tightly against the jaw steps. This is how you make the front and back surfaces parallel.
4.) With the slug in that position, I trim the face, clean up the OD to the same diameter as before to make it match, and cut the small bevel. Keeping it chucked, I use a spotting drill to accurately locate the center, drill through with a small pilot drill, enlarge the hole with a 15/32" drill, then ream it to final size with a 12mm chucking reamer. The drilling operations are all done with a drill chuck in the tailstock. By making the bore in the same setup as I cut the front face, I'm ensuring that the bore will be perpendicular to the front face. In machining, you need to think ahead and plan out the sequence of operations.
5.) Next, the slug comes out of the lathe and I put it into a drill press vise, with the side up. I center punch the location of the setscrew hole, then spot drill it, drill the body diameter to a set depth, and drill the tap diameter down through into the bore. This is all done in the drill press. Then I set the vise on the bench and tap the hole to 10-32. I run the 12mm reamer back through the bore by hand to knock off the burrs from the setscrew hole.
6.) For the holes for the bobbin screws, I carefully measured the bobbins that Chris sent me, and then divided that distance in half to give me the radius of the holes from the center. I clamp the face plate in the milling machine vise, on top of a pair of parallels, with the face up. I indicate the spindle to the bore, and set the two digital readouts to zero. This puts 0,0 at the center. With a small spotting drill in the chuck, I move the table left, right, up, and down from 0,0 to the locations of the four screw holes, leaving a small drill spot at each. In this case, the one pattern was right on the X axis, and the other on the Y axis. If I were doing a more complicated pattern with more holes, I'd first draw it up in AutoCad to get the X,Y coordinates of all the holes. Then they'd be spotted the same way in the Mill. You don't need digital readouts on the mill to do this, but they make it faster and less prone to mistakes.
7.) The face plate comes out of the mill vise and back over to the drill press. I drill the small holes #43 and lightly countersink them. Back on the bench, I hand tap them 4-40 and clear out the chips.
8.) All that's left is deburring any edges, and running the outer edge of the face over a finishing wheel and a buffing wheel to polish it.

That's it. It took me about an hour and 25 minutes total, but I was taking my time.

[StarryNight]

Thanks Bruce, that's a great rundown. I never thought to consider that the jaws (and each of the steps) of the chuck would be coplanar, but of course that makes sense. I just got the lathe so this will be a good project to attempt.

btw: I love that multi drill chuck turret on the Logan. It looks like it weighs a ton.

[Bruce Johnson]

btw: I love that multi drill chuck turret on the Logan. It looks like it weighs a ton.

No, that whole turret tailstock assembly only weighs maybe 80 lbs. I've lifted it on and off of there myself, without a hoist. That Logan has the longer bed, which is nice because I can slide the whole turret tailstock back to the right and install the standard tailstock in front of it when I need to turn something between centers. The turret tailstock is very handy for running batches of parts. I don't really use the rotating turret feature that much....I have a good keyless chuck in one of the positions that gets the bulk of the use. The really useful thing is the sliding ram operated by the handles, with the accurate depth stops. That's the real time saver. For most parts that I make, it's faster to swap the part in the collet using the lever closer, than it is to index the turret to the next chuck position. So, I'll tend to do the first operation on the whole batch of parts, change the tool and depth stop, then do the second operation on the whole batch, etc.

One of the great things about the old Logan lathes is the easy availability of aftermarket accessories, such as the turret tailstock, lever cross slides, lever collet closers, etc. I have two Logans, that long bed 11" model 1940, and a 11" model 1920 short bed that's disassembled right now. The Logans are excellent small size lathes. The 1940 weighs about 800 lbs total and has a 1/2 hp motor.

The LeBlond is a much bigger and stronger lathe. It weighs about 3200 lbs and has a 3 hp motor. I have several chucks for it, ranging from 10" to 16" diameter. The 16" chuck weighs over 200 lbs and, yes, I use a hoist to put it on there. I did the lathe work on this face plate on the LeBlond, because I generally keep it set up with a 3-jaw chuck. I also have 3 and 4 jaw chucks for the Logan, so I could have used it if needed. But I normally use the Logan just for collet work (under 1" daimeter). Right now the Logan is set up to run a batch of custom tremelo screws for a client.