What I thought was going to be an afternoon project turned into a couple of days play. My BXA tool post needs a 1" wrench to loosen/tighten the nut which is a pita to keep track of the wrench so I figured I'd make a new nut with a handle.
Turns out the threads are metric and my lathe is metric illiterate and I don't have a metric tap that size so I made a whole new setup. The new t-nut, post and nut are all 5/8 - 18 single pointed on the lathe and turned out really well. The threaded holes were done to about 90% on the lathe and finished off with a tap. The original handle (black) has 1/2 - 13 at the post end and metric at the knob end, weird. The new handle is 1/2 -13 at the post and 3/8 -16 at the knob end with a taper from 1/2 to 3/8, thank you TA. The original handle has flats for a 10mm wrench so to keep the need for one wrench I did the same on the new handle as well.
On the top of the post I tapped a 1/4 - 28 hole for a post that can hold a DTI or micrometer or whatever, some one else mentioned this in another thread and it sounded like a good plan.
As is normal I missed taking in progress pictures but here is the end result. Pictures show the original, the new parts, the new parts and post all together and milling the flats on the new handle. The Rose-Index hasn't arrived yet so I had to improvise the 180 degree spin of the handle using nuts.
If I had it do over the only change would be to add bit more clearance between the two handles, if I'm not careful I can bang my knuckles between the two but not hard enough to use shop words.
Turns out the threads are metric and my lathe is metric illiterate and I don't have a metric tap that size so I made a whole new setup. The new t-nut, post and nut are all 5/8 - 18 single pointed on the lathe and turned out really well. The threaded holes were done to about 90% on the lathe and finished off with a tap. The original handle (black) has 1/2 - 13 at the post end and metric at the knob end, weird. The new handle is 1/2 -13 at the post and 3/8 -16 at the knob end with a taper from 1/2 to 3/8, thank you TA. The original handle has flats for a 10mm wrench so to keep the need for one wrench I did the same on the new handle as well.
On the top of the post I tapped a 1/4 - 28 hole for a post that can hold a DTI or micrometer or whatever, some one else mentioned this in another thread and it sounded like a good plan.
As is normal I missed taking in progress pictures but here is the end result. Pictures show the original, the new parts, the new parts and post all together and milling the flats on the new handle. The Rose-Index hasn't arrived yet so I had to improvise the 180 degree spin of the handle using nuts.
If I had it do over the only change would be to add bit more clearance between the two handles, if I'm not careful I can bang my knuckles between the two but not hard enough to use shop words.
