Setco Spindle questions

Background

I'm mostly a woodturner, on a budget, that turns as a hobby.
About 5 years ago I started buying antique machinery and storing it. That gave me access to much better quality machine, than I could normally afford.

Now, I have a nice collection of fully restored machines, mostly about 100 years old, all in use.

And, I'm feeling the need to upgrade by lathe.
I have done many large pieces (up to 500 lbs) but thats really pushing my machine to, and possibly beyond, the limit.

The Goal:
I'm sure this has come up before, and I've read a lot of online articles, seen YouTube videos and so forth. But I'm set on building a big bowl lathe, very similar to Ed Moulthrop seen here: The Moulthrop family of woodturners - YouTube

Requirements
Is to build a dedicated bowl lathe, for:
- large diameter (~32")
- rpms typically 200 - 1000
- heavy (~2-300 lbs) blanks of solid wood
- These will be off balance, so will be mounted to faceplates.
- able to run in reverse (so the faceplates will like have a cam lock solution (or similar)
- the whole thing as to withstand vibration of the piece being off-centre (no idea how to calculate these forces
- Power: I have 5 hp, 8 pole motor, plus matching VFD and DriveALL


Options

Large concrete base, a 1" thick steel sheet on top, with threaded rod, down into the concrete.
From the pics below, plan A, was to use plummers blocks and get the spindle custom made.



However...from reading through this post http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-308682.html it seems that a used Setco spindle might be a better solution.

A bit of surfing got me to these guys:
Setco 439BY.2951 C.W. From Rear Horizontal Sidewall 2-1/2" Shaft Box Spindle | Bullseye Industrial Sales

Setco does not have a lot of info on older models and I can't find much info.
These do appear to be for milling machines (or similar)

At $300, I can't get a custom job done for that price.
And this thing looks to be massively strong. And might be a much better solution

So my questions are

1 - at the cutting end, I would like to weld on a mounting plate. My faceplates will be screwed/bolted to the wood, then bolted to the mounting plate.

This plate on the Setco, is that a solidly mounted plate that I can bolt to?



2 - some of these grease lubricated, some oil. Seems like the oil ones need a constant flow?

3 - weight. This one is 9x10x21" which I calculate as ~500 lbs. Does that sound right?

Thanks for the feedback.
Olaf

I’m not a spindle expert by any means, so take this with a grain of salt. I have one colonial and one RAS that i’ve picked up over the years for cheap “to make something out of someday.”

What i can tell you about Setco spindles is that the vast majority of them I’ve ever seen second hand are boring or grinding spindles, not milling spindles. Most of these are specialized faces for specific tooling for certain jobs. Your likelihood of finding any bolt on tooling directly to the face is really slim to zero. You definitely could machine your own adaptor to bolt up to what is on the face already though. From the looks of this one, the paired holes in the X pattern are threaded, so that’s what you would be working with.

The spindle nose (the face) is integral to the spindle itself, it is all one piece.

DO NOT WELD anything onto the spindle nose itself. It’s ground and hardened and was balanced at one point. The weld might look fine, but the weld zone will be brittle and have a high risk of cracking when you least expect it with your giant piece of wood on it.

As far as will mounting a faceplate and work holding on this spindle work? I have no idea. It might. But remember that these are boring and grinding spindles, so they are engineered to hold a tool, not to hold a few hundred off balance pounds off of. Also you’ll have difficulty machining new features into the spindle nose, so that’s what you’ll be working with.

It’s been awhile so I might be messing up some numbers, but 4XXBY i think means custom nose Boring spindle. 4XXAY is a custom nose Grinding spindle, and 4XXH3 would be a iso 30 Milling spindle. If you download the big setco catalog (like 350 pages), you can sort of figure out the old serial number sequence by what they still produce today. 4000 is the body series, the middle two are some nominal dimension, and the last two digits are intended use and spindle nose. I think. 5000 series bodies could also work.

I think the milling spindle would be a better bet, as it is likely to be engineered to run at a slower rpm with greater resistance to side-loading and probably more torque. Also a milling spindle would have a standard taper on the nose which would lead to a greater pool of ready made tooling/adaptors/faceplates.

You’ll note on the tag that this is horizontal, so good for your project. It is also unidirectional (cw = clockwise), potentially bad for your project. Most i’ve seen say ccw/cw, birectional, or r/l.

If there’s no oil port, it’s permanent kluber type grease lubrication. Don’t know about the oil ones.

Just my .01c.

Thanks for the feedback - that really helps!
I had done a search for the model on Setco's site, but it seem to NOT scan their PDFs.


Going through their boring section I found this


Its a lot bigger than I thought.

With your suggestions in mind, I'll keep looking.

quick question: what makes a spindle uni-directional? Are there flutes inside that move the grease/oil?

Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the feedback - that really helps!
I had done a search for the model on Setco's site, but it seem to NOT scan their PDFs.


Going through their boring section I found this
View attachment 213475

Its a lot bigger than I thought.

With your suggestions in mind, I'll keep looking.

quick question: what makes a spindle uni-directional? Are there flutes inside that move the grease/oil?

Thanks for the feedback

shandit66 said:

The Goal:I'm set on building a big bowl lathe

Click to expand...

32" I could mount and swing on the larger of my horizontal (metal) milling machines. Or off the arse-end of any of my 10" to 14" (metal) turning lathes.

Otherwise, I'd start with a salvaged "third member", AKA differential and axle housing from a heavy passenger car, light/medium truck. Or just a pair of sub 20 USD$ pillow-blocks, Thompson shafting, a few belted pulleys.

The rest would be framing so it clears the deck, a way to mount your motor, and some sort of toolrest.

Medium/heavy metal lathe left-end of HS, spindle adaptor, would need only the toolrest "off chassis".

All of these are brute-simple DIY adaptations. Arse-end bowl turning was a common expedient, Jr HS shop, 10" (otherwise) lathe.

A "Setco spindle" isn't required.


2CW

Nearly free things with much more mass are laying about (this one in Hawaii)

About 2200 Lbs of already done - probably would do a fair job of not noticing out of balance Timber parts

johnoder said:

Nearly free things with much more mass are laying about (this one in Hawaii)

About 2200 Lbs of already done - probably would do a fair job of not noticing out of balance Timber parts

Click to expand...

Hey, I'd be happy to use that. Can you please send it up to Toronto?


I am snooping around for such solutions, and have scavenged a lot of old tools.
But haven't found one of those yet.