Disc sanding attachment??'s

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Fish30114

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Does anyone make a sanding disc attachment that fits into a MT2 and has say a 6" disc on it? Have looked around and searched the 'Library' and can't find much except folks turning a piece of plywood and sticking sandpaper on it. I am looking for a more 'factory' solution, surely someone makes a sanding disc attachment that just slips into your headstock.

I figured I would get one of the jigs Rick Herrel (sp) makes for use with it if I can find one.
 
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It is so easy to make one out of mdf. Cut the size you want and then screw and glue and smaller circle, use corian and it won't lose it's shape from repeated use, centered and you can easily slip it in and out of a chuck for use.
 
Tis less work to shop build a sanding disk on a face plate (or a shop built threaded block) than it is to mount one onto a morse taper.

For slow speeds, MDF works -- faster speeds, hardwood or corian has advantage.

I use a 9 inch PSA sanding disk on MDF on a faceplate. Spent some time truing the face, and it works well.
 
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I bought a sanding disc with a hook/loop surface at Harbor Freight. The disk had a threaded hub intended to allow it to attach to a threaded shaft.

To mount it on my lathe, I turned a block of wood to make a spindle adapter - a hole at one end that is tapped to thread onto my lathe spindle, and with a bolt through the block that threads into the hub on the sanding disk.
 
Don; Just a caution. Any thing you put inside the MT taper that turns must be restrained with a drawbar. This includes a jacobs chuck, sanding disk.

As other have said, a piece of plywood or MDF cut round and mounted to a faceplate is easy as pie.
 
randyrls said:
Don; Just a caution. Any thing you put inside the MT taper that turns must be restrained with a drawbar. This includes a jacobs chuck, sanding disk.

As other have said, a piece of plywood or MDF cut round and mounted to a faceplate is easy as pie.
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Randy & others thanks for the thoughts, Randy, I have a keyless chuck that is on an MT2 shaft that I have been using in my tailstock, to drill blanks with, I have just been slipping the chuck assembly into the taper in the tailstock==Should I be doing something else?

As to turning a disc fixture I just was hoping there was a manufactured solution that I could obtain that was simply mounted to an MT2 that was appropriate to use in my headstock.
 
Whenever you use a morse taper fixture for an application other than between-centers turning, its a good idea to have a drawbar to hold that taper in the spindle.

For example, if you are using an MT Jacobs chuck for drilling, the workpiece is effectively 'between centers' when you are actually drilling the hole. But when you are pulling the workpiece away from the headstock to withdraw the drill bit from the hole, there is a risk that the lateral force could overcome the friction holding the taper in the headstock spindle, and instead of pulling the bit out of the hole, you pull the Jacobs chuck out of the spindle. And if it is rotating at the time, that can be dangerous.

Cip Mendes did a YouTube video a few days ago illustrating how he made a drawbar for his Jacobs chuck. It's really very simple (and the stuff that you have to buy for the project is inexpensive), but the increment in safety is very significant. Here's a link to Cip's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkbM1aXTGAA

One thing to be aware of Jacobs chucks often have TWO tapers - an MT taper to mount the chuck arbor in the spindle of the lathe, and a second taper (typically JT33) that fits the arbor into the body of the chuck. A drawbar will hold the arbor in the headstock, but it is still possible to break that JT33 taper loose when withdrawing a bit. DHMHIKT.

The point is that the safer way to use a Jacobs chuck on a lathe is to mount it in the tailstock, mount the workpiece on the spindle using whatever fixing you want (a scroll chuck, a glue block, a collet chuck, etc), and then drill by spinning the workpiece against a stationary drill bit while holding the Jacobs chuck with your left hand to keep it from spinning.
 
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Mono, thank for the feedback and that link, that guy is obviously an old master! I will check and see if a drawbar of whatever type is doable for my tailstock and chuck, I don't even know if my MT2 on my chuck is threaded, I'm gonna head down to the shop in a sec and see.

Thanks again--Don
 
Rick, thanks for that, that's what I was thinking--so people are just being overly safety minded when they tell you to 'secure your chuck in you tailstock'? I haven't had any issues yet....
 
rherrell said:
You can't use a drawbar to hold a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock, you won't be able to crank it so it will be useless for drilling.
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Hmmm ... I think this depends on the design of the tailstock.

For example, my Nova 1624 has a tailstock where the entire quill passes through the hand crank -- it doesn't change length when I extend it, simply moves the part closer to or further away from the headstock.
 
Don

You raise a very important point - making assumptions can sometimes lead to surprises.

About a year ago I upgraded from my small Chinese 'starter lathe' to a Chinese 'midi-lathe'. I knew that the new lathe would have a different spindle size (1x8/MT2 versus 3/4x16, MT1) and I didn't want to have to replace a bunch of accessories. I shopped around and purchase a new arbor for my Jacobs chuck, a 'sleeve' that allowed me to continue to use my MT1 pen mandrel in the MT2 spindle of my new lathe, and an adapter that mated both a 3/4x16 winestopper mandrel and a similarly sized expanding collet mandrel to the 1x8 threading of the new spindle.

But in the course of doing that I had three surprising observations:
First, neither the pen mandrel or the sleeve was threaded to accept a drawbar. Now, that's ok with a pen mandrel because I generally set the tailstock live center into the end of the mandrel, so there is no way that the taper can loosen and cause anything to fly off the lathe.

But the other surprise was that the new arbor for my drill chuck was drilled and threaded for a 3/8x16 drawbar rather than the 1/4x20 drawbar that I had been using. Not a big deal - just made a new drawbar. But it proves the point that a simple measurement avoids the problems that you can get into if you make assumptions.
 
Yes Mono, that's exactly it, I want to check with folks around here to save myself if possible--LOL Some things seem simple to folks who have been doing this for a while, that aren't so simple to us NEWBS :frown: I appreciate everyone's input.
 
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