When chucking a long workpiece in your lathe, such as bar stock used to make custom valve guides, it’s imperative to support the far end inside the spindle. Commercial spindle liners are available but can be costly or you may not have the exact size needed on hand. There are a couple of alternative methods we’ve successfully used for many years:
- Nested hoses that slide into the lathe’s spindle with all the hoses pushed flush with the end of the spindle.
- Aluminum discs, made from 1/2″ thick scrap, drilled to fit most common sizes of round-bar. We machine the O.D. on a few blanks so they’re ready for custom ID sizing if needed. The disc slips into a collar, which slips over the end of the lathe’s spindle. Electrical tape wrapped around the bar-stock keeps everything in place, once the bar-stock is gripped by the chuck.
- 1/2″ thick aluminum discs made to slide inside the spindle, to support slightly shorter bar-stock. The disc is held in place on the round bar-stock with electrical tape on both sides.
Tom Nichols
Automotive Machine & Supply, Inc
Inver Grove Heights, MN
