The Little Jet Lathe That Just Might Could

Made small progress today. Milled off the QCTP T plate to fit the compound and installed the QCTP. Bolted the motor to the mounting plate. That was rather a pain, a shooting buddy did a great job in manhandling that 96 pound gorilla of a motor. Cleaned the 3J that came with the lathe.

Once I got the 3J all cleaned up and out together, I installed my Pacific Tool And Gauge Test Bar and swept it. Looking good. I will add the video once I get it on you tube.

Have y'all seen a chuck with this brand. This what came with Baby Jet 1024.

It has been awhile since I updated the thread. Progress has been slow, but we're getting there. I did not take the lathe down to component level, most of the works is limited to scrubbing the old crud off. The Baby Jet cleaned up nicely.




The lathe is getting the whole enchilada with the VFD, including a proximity sensor.. The wiring and control box was designed and built by Mark. Thanks, bud, appreciate all the help. The lathe being so short, if I were to use a front spider, the proximity sensor and it associated hardware just would not fit between the headstock and the carriage. Mark is redesigning the mounting block. Y'all will like it when you the innovative design. In the meantime, I worked on the VFD system in between doing barrel work on the ACER.

The bottom unistrut houses the incoming power and the wiring from the VFD to the motor. The other unistruts is where the signal cables are routed through.






Next steps:
Mount the directional control box to the front unistrut that is mounted horizontally between the legs.
Mount the proximity sensor ,
Terminate the wiring
Program the VFD
Drill and tap the chuck back palte for set screw to help prevent the chuck from unscrewing itself

Finally managed to finish the wiring on the Baby Jet 1024. All checked well.

Many Thanks to Mark J and Mike W for all their help on this project. I think this little lathe will serve me well for the years to come.

Last and final update.

Leveled the stand and shimmed the bed feet the best I could. Not perfect, but it should work for now, there is no discernable bed twist. Made a pass on my aluminum test piece to see how the taper is across the 8 inch long aluminum. Pretty for government work. Pictures tell the tale.

Shimming the bed feet was George Wilson's advise. Thanks, George.

I believe this little green lathe could produce some nice projects. It will be dedicated lathe for chambering AR15 aervice rifle competition barrels .

Thanks to Mark J and Mike W for all their help.

I have the same lathe and while I'm certainly not an expert , it definitely punches above it's weight. The VFD motor upgrade is coming although it might happen on my mill first. Would love your plans/parts list if you have them. Great buy and enjoy!

The parts for the control boxes were provided by our own, MKSJ. Not only he provided the parts, he wired the logic control box, the directional control, and the spindle speed control box. Mark might chime in with wiring diagram and parts list.

I sourced the 2 HP 3P motor, it is a Marathon Black Max.

All I had to do was lay out the wiring and integrate the boxes.

Great Thread. I too am the happy owner of a Jet-1024 Lathe. I like your VFD upgrade. I may have to consider that in the future.

I couldn't tell from the picts if you ever got the TS handle and indicator dial you needed. Grizzly's G9249 is, as far as I've been able to tell, identical to the Jet-1024, with the exception its a 12x37. I was missing some of the threading gears on my lathe and ordered a set from Grizzly and they fit perfectly.

Though Grizzly doesn't see the lathe any more. They still sell parts for it. Here's a link. http://www.grizzly.com/products/g9249/parts

Chris

DAT510 said:

Great Thread. I too am the happy owner of a Jet-1024 Lathe. I like your VFD upgrade. I may have to consider that in the future.

I couldn't tell from the picts if you ever got the TS handle and indicator dial you needed. Grizzly's G9249 is, as far as I've been able to tell, identical to the Jet-1024, with the exception its a 12x37. I was missing some of the threading gears on my lathe and ordered a set from Grizzly and they fit perfectly.

Though Grizzly doesn't see the lathe any more. They still sell parts for it. Here's a link. http://www.grizzly.com/products/g9249/parts

Chris

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Chris,

Thank you for the tip, that will be handy in the future.

I bought a crank from the UK, and it has a dial in Imperial. It came in with 10mm inner bore, bored it out to 12 to fit the TS.

A friend of mine built a wood try for my tool holders, it is indeed quite handy.

Next upgrade would be the newly designed Proximity sensor from Mark. Over the winter I will remove the pulley system and remount the motor to where it will connect directly to the spindle pulleys. The new mount would havebits legs welded to the base top plate and actual motor plate wpuld be elevated at the same height as the current pulley that drives the spindle pulley.

So far I chambered close to a dozen AR barrels on this little jewel.

Nice little lathe . Never see anything good up here in northeast PA ...tired iron for top dollar