Nice job making the hook wrench. What kind of steel did you start with for that job?
One solution to fixing the lathe (though not the cheapest or easiest) would be to make a new hollow "bolt" from
bronze. Can you cast a bronze tube to make a part like that?
I think the steel was spring steel, it's the closest material that I have forged in the past to this. It has a high carbon content, but it does make sense, bars for a clamp have some spring in them, and they are very durable. These bars were given to me not because they were broken, it is because the threaded parts were too warn and it would have costed more to replace them rather than buy a new clamp. I think I have about 5 more like this that I can use for future projects.
The bronze would be amazing, casting bronze is very difficult with my current setup due to the high temperatures, it takes a lot more heat to keep the bronze molten, and with that comes more danger also. I can do Aluminum no problem, but I recently created an Aluminum-Bronze ingot, which was so hard that my drill bit did not create a hole, it simply skated along the surface... steel no problem, Bronze has some amazing properties.
I was also thinking that a thrust bearing may be a good solution, though not original to the lathe, so it was only something that crossed my mind. So we'll have to see how the fix comes together, but thank you for the excellent thoughts on this my friend.
Mike
