I had the occasion to use the large 1/2 hp DC motor with variable speed and reversible direction connected to a jack shaft to turn a Taig 2 inch chuck.
I clamped the power head to the bench and clamped the wrapper bed to the bench to make some grip changes on a finished rod.

In past years, I had a bad day when I had a nice new completed rod blow up on my because I was spinning it fast on my single speed lathe - at that time which was 3600 rpm. The rod went into destructive oscillation and before I could stop the motor, the rod blew.

So, this was the main reason that I wanted a strong motor to turn a completed rod with a variable speed. That way, as I am adjusting the positions of the rod rests to have the rests placed in a null point on the rod to avoid blow ups, I can start the speed at 0 and creep up on the speed, while watching for any sign of destructive oscillation.

The work was successful this evening and the rod grip was reshaped to meet the requirements of the client.

A picture of just the power head, and a picture of the power head clamped down, the wrapper bed clamped down and with the rod in place.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Drop me an e-mail if you have any questions. This was a single one off build just to use up the big dc motor that I had purchased years ago for an entirely different need which disappeared.

Be safe

Hi Roger, your posts about making wrappers and dryers are always welcomed. One day I will get around to making a motorised wrapper. Out of curiosity is there much difference between using a 3 vs 4 jaw chuck.
Cheers Scott.

Scott,
For fine detail metal machining, the use of a 4 jaw chuck with individually adjustable jaws allow a machinist to dial in the chuck to .005 inches or less.

This compares to a potential centering adjustment of .05 inches for a fixed 3 jaw chuck which I commonly use.

However, if a person is not working with a round object, but rather a rectangular or similar object, then, by all means use a 4 jaw chuck with individually adjustable jaws.

This is commonly the case were a person starts a project that is based on rectangular or some other non round shape. Then, you can dial in your chuck to minimize material removal during the machining job.

Good luck

Roger

That is a serious set up. What kind of power supply do you have for this motor. It must be rather large to handle the current required for a 1/2 hp motor. Does it have an electrical brake if not how fast does it stop.

To avoid excess vibration when turning a completed rod I tape a spare guide 180 degrees to the but guide and the next larger guides, this keeps the rod in a reasonable state of balance while spinning.

Again very clever.

Have fun
John

Roger,
email sent,
Herb

John,
The beauty of this motor is that it is powered by an simple plug that has been plugged into 120volt ac voltage.

In the can on the end of the motor is a ac/dc rectifier and speed controller. Sticking out the hidden side of the motor is a speed knob that varies the speed of the motor from OFF - to full speed.

So, what you see, is what you get, and is all that is needed.

When you turn off the motor, you rotate the motor back to full off or full stop position. The change in the speed controller uses dc motor braking so that at the same instant as the speed dial goes t full stop. the motor itself is stopped.

-------------------------------------
I picked up this motor quite a few years ago, on a lark - so to speak. Out of curiosity I did a pretty extensive search for a similar motor that is currently available and came up blank.
The closest thing that I found available today is a dc motor being sold as a replacement lathe motor with a speed range of 1400- 2500 rpm with a separate box for the speed controller. In my case, this is not good enough, due to the starting speed of 1400 rpm.

------------------------------------
In reality, the motor and chuck that makes the most sense is the use of a variable speed dc drill with a gear shiftier on the motor. This gives really excellent speed control and power in a very small and light foot print. The only difficult part of the equation is how to control the speed with some sort of foot control. I have used some of these before and used a mechanical setup to press against the trigger of the drill controller to vary the speed. The other advantage of this setup, is that one can have a very small and light foot print to do the job.


[www.rodbuilding.org]

This picture illustrates a stripped down 24 volt, 2-speed, 1/2 inch, variable speed drill motor. and chuck. It is powered by a foot pedal controlled heavy duty power supply that varies the voltage from 0-24 volts to change the speed.

The setup as illustrated works well if one can use the 1/2 inch chuck to clamp a piece of solid tapered stock and then insert the tapered stock into the end of the rod blank. But, if the end of the rod is covered, I then go to a 3 inch taig chuck to hold the work that is screwed onto a 1/2 inch shank with a set of 3/4x16 tpi threads for the chuck.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

In the picture above, this is my standard headstock that I use for all of my power wrapping. If I need to turn cork using the drill motor with a rod that has a solid end, I remove the shank and 3 inch chuck from my standard setup and insert it into the chuck of my drill motor.
This then allows me to shape cork or tweak a blank if needed. The one downside of the drill motor setup compared to using the much larger and heavier dc motor is the fact that the drill motor has gear noise, but the 1/2 ho motor has virtually no noise do to the total lack of gears in the setup.

Good luck

Roger

That is pretty slick, thanks for info,

Have fun

John