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Homemade Live Center

Written by Jamie Cunningham
Published on 28 October 2010
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Here's my first official project with my new Mill Drill Lathe - I wanted to make my own live center - so here are some pics!

This exercise gave me a good variety of functions to perform - I had to turn down the steel to a 60 degree point, and also turn down the other end of the steel to fit inside the bearings. Next was drilling then boring the inside of the aluminum to fit the outside of the bearings, and lastly I had to turn down a 3MT Morse taper to fit my tail stock.

Check out the pictures! :)

I've also been just messing around cleaning up old casting leftovers - these things were from the cans I used to "funnel" the aluminum into the sand/foam - on the top of the picture you can see how they'd look after casting (note - these are meant to be thrown back into the furnace and remelted anyway) and at the bottom of the picture you can see my cleaned up version - I'm sure I'll find a use for this aluminum! :)

The Workshop - Metalworking Projects