Magnetic chuck

[mac1911]

For mine, I made all new parts: bushing for housing (with x-ring), shaft, crank arm, link:

Very new to all this , where do you get the bushings? Will try to make one on my 3-1
Im not sure how to make the shaft with out a mill. Shaft is the main issue. From what I can tell im loosing about .130-ish of total plate movement keeping it from full engagement.
I have a smithy 3-1 although the mill portion is trash.

 

[jwmelvin]

where do you get the bushings? Will try to make one on my 3-1
Im not sure how to make the shaft with out a mill.

I made the bronze bushing:

The seal x-ring I got from McMaster.

The shaft and crank arm I made on the lathe, offsetting the crank in a 4-jaw for the protruding pin, and pressing in the longer shaft. Cross drilling for a pin I did in the mill, but you might do that in a drill press.

 

[mac1911]

I made the bronze bushing:

The seal x-ring I got from McMaster.

The shaft and crank arm I made on the lathe, offsetting the crank in a 4-jaw for the protruding pin, and pressing in the longer shaft. Cross drilling for a pin I did in the mill, but you might do that in a drill press.

My 3-1 mill portion is crap.
No 4 jaw chuck….
Heck cant even scrounge up the scraps to give it a go….ugh
New to it all

 

[mac1911]

I decided to put it all back together. At least cleaned and lubed the throw handle moves the complete 180. It holds better but I feel like its still to easy to pull and push parts around ?
Just having a bit of a hard time trying to lay out the measurements to replicate the shaft.
New to all of this. So Im going to start with some reading up on how to measure and lay out offset holes amd such
Im going to have to take another stab at getting the mill portion of my 3-1 at least useable

 

[Dabbler]

I decided to put it all back together. At least cleaned and lubed the throw handle moves the complete 180. It holds better but I feel like its still to easy to pull and push parts around ?
Just having a bit of a hard time trying to lay out the measurements to replicate the shaft.
New to all of this. So Im going to start with some reading up on how to measure and lay out offset holes amd such
Im going to have to take another stab at getting the mill portion of my 3-1 at least useable

You are doing the right thing. Being a machinist of any kind means developing hundreds of diverse skills - ones that once you master it becomes like a vocabulary. A job gets as easy as forming a sentence.

You show good wisdom in realizing that your don't yet have some of the things that make the job easy.

Some of the guys in my city have found a mentour, some take night classes in machining, some buy and read all the books on metalworking tips they can find. I had the books, and had a a mentour. However my deepest skils were the ones I figured out on my own. Once I knew how to do something , even in a half-arsed way, I would then look to othhers to find out how to do the same thing. Often their methods were superior, and in a few cases mine were better. I kind of collect skills/techniques as my metalworking hobby. For me it is the funnest part!

 

[mac1911]

You are doing the right thing. Being a machinist of any kind means developing hundreds of diverse skills - ones that once you master it becomes like a vocabulary. A job gets as easy as forming a sentence.

You show good wisdom in realizing that your don't yet have some of the things that make the job easy.

Some of the guys in my city have found a mentour, some take night classes in machining, some buy and read all the books on metalworking tips they can find. I had the books, and had a a mentour. However my deepest skils were the ones I figured out on my own. Once I knew how to do something , even in a half-arsed way, I would then look to othhers to find out how to do the same thing. Often their methods were superior, and in a few cases mine were better. I kind of collect skills/techniques as my metalworking hobby. For me it is the funnest part!

I wont be taking any classes and I have picked up a few random books here and there.
Im a Auto Tech by trade. Always “making” stuff.
I picked up the smithy for the cost of moving it . Its been a project just getting the lathe portion at least functional. The mill is just a mess glorified drill press. The vise this machine came with is a a basic drill press vise that just refuses to stay tight.
I had to do a lot of shimming and modifying to get the excessive slop out of the machine and still working on way to spindle alignment.
More or less what should be tight was loose and ehat should be “loose” was tight.
To add to any difficulty the lathe located in a shed with no power so Im running generator for power.
Some day I will get power out there.

The magnet chuck was a inexpensive purchase maybe a few dollars over scrap price.
The handle would only go about 2/3 its full travel:
It “worked “ enough for parts to “stick” but would not call it “holding power” I use it mostly for holding small parts while I polish them.

 

[Dabbler]

I use it mostly for holding small parts while I polish them.

Mostly people use a magnetic chuck for low pressure operations such as surface grinding. Even then, it is sometimes wiser to use a machinists vise. If you don't have a surface grinder, and only use this for polishing or light grinding with a Dremel, then the chuck shouldn't need a service for a little while....

 

[mac1911]

Mostly people use a magnetic chuck for low pressure operations such as surface grinding. Even then, it is sometimes wiser to use a machinists vise. If you don't have a surface grinder, and only use this for polishing or light grinding with a Dremel, then the chuck shouldn't need a service for a little while....

The throw lever linkage is definitely worn. Like I said when I first got it from the off position to the on position only went about 150° swing it wouldn’t do that last 30° fully on. I don’t have a lot of pitches but when I took it apart, it was full of like hard crusty grease, especially in between the two magnet plates or the two plates. So at some point in its life, the plates got hung up of bound up for whatever reason and I’m going to guess it was put out of use. Now that it’s all clean and I freed up the plates I get the 180° swing of the handle but you can feel where that slop no longer is influenced influencing. The movement of the plate. In hindsight, I probably should’ve rigged up some sort of scale to compare the holding strength. I just don’t have time for that. All things considered looking at this the plate moves maybe quarter of an inch to align the polls? I estimate, the one linkage I’m losing 1/3 of the total travel. How much stronger it would be with 1/3 more travel I do not know. At least for now it is stronger and the handle is not sticking up above the surface. I’ll get back to it I just don’t have a lot of time to fool around with it and I have a few parts I would love to polish before I get back into it

 

[Weldingrod1]

BTW, magnetic chucks are the cats meow for cleaning the dross off of plasma cut parts!

Sent from my SM-G715A using Tapatalk

 

[matthewsx]

I wont be taking any classes and I have picked up a few random books here and there.
Im a Auto Tech by trade. Always “making” stuff.
I picked up the smithy for the cost of moving it . Its been a project just getting the lathe portion at least functional. The mill is just a mess glorified drill press. The vise this machine came with is a a basic drill press vise that just refuses to stay tight.
I had to do a lot of shimming and modifying to get the excessive slop out of the machine and still working on way to spindle alignment.
More or less what should be tight was loose and ehat should be “loose” was tight.
To add to any difficulty the lathe located in a shed with no power so Im running generator for power.
Some day I will get power out there.

The magnet chuck was a inexpensive purchase maybe a few dollars over scrap price.
The handle would only go about 2/3 its full travel:
It “worked “ enough for parts to “stick” but would not call it “holding power” I use it mostly for holding small parts while I polish them.

I would love to take classes if they offer them around here. Seems most machining programs are aimed at getting apprentice CNC workers out the door and into industry.

I previously owned a shop and have worked on cars most of my life. I'm gonna bet you have fallen down the rabbit hole my friend. You've realized that the tool you have is limited and soon you'll start wanting better, more, etc. My advise would be to get the most from the lathe portion of your Smithy. keep your garage clean, save some benjamins and you'll eventually be presented with another deal you can't pass up. Having worked with the Smithy will give you the skills to evaluate the next purchase.

Use this chuck as-is until you get the skills to make it better, or sell it off when you find a better one. Doesn't matter much until you get a surface grinder anyway I think.

Cheers,

John