- Joined
- Nov 27, 2012
- Messages
- 7,855
Striped t-shirt & wall means you're doing it right!
No striped shirt for me though, I was taught to never stand in the line of fire of the chuck.
I'm one of those who don't care for chuck guards/shields. My lathe came with one stock, it was connected to a safety switch. So if the guard was not down, spindle won't power on. Like mentioned it also prevents me from running the lathe with a key in the chuck as the guard can't come down far enough to disengage the safety switch.
I used it for like 8 months or so & thought nothing of it. Mine blocked a lot of the oil flung from a chuck but it was not wide enough to shield from chips. Then when I started making multiples of things, as I would doing an op on each part then change to the next op, I got really tired of the chuck guard as I was swapping each piece in for each op to save time on tool changes & setup. All the chuck guard did was slow me down. Taking mine off was one of the best things I did to my lathe as it saved me so much time when do a run of parts. It served me no real benefit to keep it on so off it stays & has been for years.
I've seen a number of guys here use the flexbar shields which look very nice, pretty expensive too. Having it not connected to a safety switch will allow you to only use it when needed & still run the lathe. Still I prefer not to have one.
You can always try one & see if it's suitable for you. Do you have one for your lathe, it looks like the mounting arm is there.
No striped shirt for me though, I was taught to never stand in the line of fire of the chuck.
I'm one of those who don't care for chuck guards/shields. My lathe came with one stock, it was connected to a safety switch. So if the guard was not down, spindle won't power on. Like mentioned it also prevents me from running the lathe with a key in the chuck as the guard can't come down far enough to disengage the safety switch.
I used it for like 8 months or so & thought nothing of it. Mine blocked a lot of the oil flung from a chuck but it was not wide enough to shield from chips. Then when I started making multiples of things, as I would doing an op on each part then change to the next op, I got really tired of the chuck guard as I was swapping each piece in for each op to save time on tool changes & setup. All the chuck guard did was slow me down. Taking mine off was one of the best things I did to my lathe as it saved me so much time when do a run of parts. It served me no real benefit to keep it on so off it stays & has been for years.
I've seen a number of guys here use the flexbar shields which look very nice, pretty expensive too. Having it not connected to a safety switch will allow you to only use it when needed & still run the lathe. Still I prefer not to have one.
You can always try one & see if it's suitable for you. Do you have one for your lathe, it looks like the mounting arm is there.