my cutter - fresh out the lab

[Gridlock]

northwest lathe dorks...dude for real. in eugene with a presto k 8.

[folk]

What a awesome lathe! I just have a question. How did you hook up the heated stylus?

I have the same cuttinghead and just came up on a power supply to control the heat but do not know how to hook up the wires to the head.

any help will do. Pictures would be excellent.

hey, thanks!
____________

heating was done like this;

if you look behind the cutterhead, where it attaches to the lathe there are two slots where the bolts go. You'll find it easier if you unscrew your cutterhead and get it out of the way

- Get some thin, long bolts with nuts and 4 larger plastic washers (or make your own) with a hole that fits the bolt.

- add a small piece of heat shrink tubing to the bolt where it could potentially touch the slots

- Put the bolts into the slots with the head facing up, your insulators (plastic washers) on top and bottom of the slots, making sure the metal of the bolt or nut doesn't touch the metal of the lathe.

- Tighten the bolts and double check to make sure they're not touching metal .

- Run wired alligator clips alongside the cutterhead wires (starting from below the cutterhead mount), securing the wires along with the cutterhead wires and clip the alligator clips to the threaded part of the bolt under the slots.

- those alligator clipped wires run to your power supply

- Once your stylus is in place, disconnect the alligator clips one at a time, wrap the wire around the thread of the bolt and reclip the alligator clip, thereby keeping the wire from unraveling.

it's quite simple and I've never had a problem with it...

best of luck!

[folk]

Hi, 45 dude hear. Did you have to replace any springs.. just wondering.. I have a presto, m41 vertical head.. is ther any advantage to the horizontal heads. Just wonding.. I'm curious. Any tips to scratch building one ???????

[/quote]

This lathe was in pretty good shape - I took everything apart, lubed it and put it back together. The springs were fine. I've never tried a vertical lathe so I couldn't say which is better.
As far as scratch building...Make really, really good friends with a machinist

[Jccc]

Hi Folk could you possibly take a picture of the back of cutter head with the heating wires hooked up?
I am a little confused on how to wire it up.


thanks