Sunday 29 March 2020

Mini-Lathe - QD Splashback

Accessing the slide for adjustment was always a problem. because you have to remove the splashback. This is easy enough but as standard it is retained by five short M5 screws, which are a pain to replace and resulted in me not checking the carriage adjustment as often as I might:


Here's the back of the lathe without the splashback in place:


I changed these for studs and long sleeve nuts, which means I can remove and replace the splashback, by hand, without moving the lathe at all. The studs are M5, about 50 mm long and are retained with Loctite 243 thread lock.

The sleeve nuts are made in two pieces:

  • a short (13mm) brass thumb nut, threaded M5
  • an 8mm OD aluminium sleeve, bored 5.5 mm which is fixed to the thumb nut via an interference fit in a counterbore in the thumb nut. The sleeves are opened up at one end with a centre drill to maximise the capture funnel

Here they are in place:


The fifth fixing screws into the head stock under the chuck and has to be long enough to reach with the chuck in place. Because its axis is parallel to the lathe spindle, you can't use a stud so this is made from a piece of studding in a long extended nut.


You can see it in position here, a bit more visible with the collet chuck in place:


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