facing the end of a pipe

ARC-170 said:
1. That's what I thought. Is there a rule about how far out something can stick before it's considered too long?
Click to expand...

you'll hear it - the work or cutter (or both!) will sing, even with light cuts. Lots of chatter and squealing. To be honest, it'll be a fairly miserable job and take you a while, but as long as you take your time and don't try any short cuts you'll get it done just fine.
 
I had a similar problem where the end of the work was about 5" or so out from the chuck. It was wobbling around pretty bad when I tried to make a cut. I finally set it up with my steady rest and that solved the problem of the wobble.
 
There was an accident some time back at Techshop. They made the people pull the photos off the web. Anyway, I heard that it was very predictable. The pipe deformed and came loose at a high speed. It didn't hit anybody, but looking at how deformed it was when it hit the wall, it could have lead to a fatality. Use a plug. It stabilizes the piece and allows for higher gripping pressure. The problem is that it is too easy to skip this step, since they wouldn't let you turn wood at Techshop, and it is expensive to make a plug out of delrin or polyethylene.

Be careful out there.
 
Looked more carefully at the pictures. I would place the end of the pipe against the chuck and if you have them I would use what I probably mistakenly call reverse jaws so that you have more contact against the pipe. Look at the jaws in the picture in post 18 above for an example of what I am talking about.
 
If the pipe is just 5" long,
1) maybe use a faceplate instead of a chuck, using some angle brackets.
2) or do it on a mill.
Greg
 
I grinded/ground (I've always used "grinded" when referring to grinding metal, but isn't "grounded" correct?) it down, then used a belt sander to get it a little more even.

I'm getting ready to put it back on the lathe, use the dial indicator to eliminate the wobble, and make light cuts to true it up. Here is a quick sketch of the set-up:
cutting pipe sketch.jpg
Is this correct?
 
You ground the pipe down.

Yes, that will work.
 
Ground is the correct past tense of grind. Grinded or grounded are incorrect. I'm not being picky here. Just answering your question.
 
It all depends on how solidly it is held in the chuck.
Once you have eliminated the wobble using the dpi, yank on the pipe by hand and recheck for wobble. If you can pull the pipe out of alignment by hand then beware!
 
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