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Lathe Bar Support

gottabench

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Location
MN
Anyone one run a Bar Support on there lathe to run longe bars in your lathes. Like the the ones JF Burns make. Never seen one in production. Basically they are just stands to hold the bar sticking out of the back of the lathe to prevent the bar from whipping.
 
Depends on the weight and length and diameter. It also depends on how fast you want to wind it up. I have seen people use regular rollers from an assembly line, mounted on adjustable tri-pods. I have seen people use large Vee blocks.

In the past for heavy long parts. I had a table on casters, that had a Steady rest mounted on top.

R
 
I run Brown and Sharpe screw machines with 12' long bar stock. I have 10' long tubes for bar stock. The bigger machines I have the back end in a 55 gallon drum with a hole cut in the lid for the stand to stick out and I filled them with 2 bags of cement to give it weight and keep the stand steady. Very easy and cheap. If needed line the steel pipe with a pvc pipe closer to the size of the stock you are running for less bar whip and lower noise.
 
Anyone one run a Bar Support on there lathe to run longe bars in your lathes. Like the the ones JF Burns make. Never seen one in production. Basically they are just stands to hold the bar sticking out of the back of the lathe to prevent the bar from whipping.

Seen many things used like bob Mentioned.
for my manual lathe I use my manual mill table to hold a pc of 1/2" conduant clamped to the mill table been doing so for 30 years.
on the cnc I go bar feeds. slow rps

I have seen tables used for 20 foot steel pipe on a bank of manual lathes for threading, they thread on both sides and have lathes on both sides of there table. pretty f'n cool for manual production work.
one of my numb nut friends used 2 55 gallon drum with wooden v blocks on top for 12 foot randoms up to 2" dia, dumb but it worked and they been doing that for 20+ years on a hitachi seiki cnc lathe.

Until you witness a 8000 lb machine lift off the ground turn about 30 degrees in mid air then land with a thump you will never understand or appreciate a solid heavy bar feeder.
 
I have used similar stock tubes like a Brown and Sharp uses on one or more CNC's.

On my "65" machine I have a 3.5" Sch 40 pipe, with 3" PVC shoved down it's throat.
Need to scalp one side of the PVC with a 7" disk grinder to pass the weld seam.

Then I add smaller tubes to get down to the size that I am looking for.

The biggest thing is to realize that this is no place to be running real high spindle speeds!
I typically won't run much over 1000 rpm with a 12 - 24' bar/tube back there.

Also - it helps to lube the inside of the tube so the barstock doesn't want to climb them walls so bad, and don't bush down too small either.

I use old stock reel stands from retired Acme's to hold it up, but they can walk around a bit.
Not seen that be a safety issue tho?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
W & S made some pretty nice ones on the turret lathes and the automatics.

central idea to the big pipe is a swivel joint at the back (extreme left in pix)

Idea is that when needing to get into the back of the lathe (to change feed fingers and such)

You remove a single clamp screw (middle support on pix), and the tube swings out towards the front, sliding on a ramp instead
of having to slide it all the way out the back.

The bars underneath are (2) and keep everything in alignment.
How does bar feeding work in turret lathes? - Quora
 

Attachments

  • W-S bar feeder.jpg
    W-S bar feeder.jpg
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Nah, just do this -

YouTube

just kidding!! DON'T DO THAT ^

That video has had several links to it here at Practical Machinist. several others have also been linked. Post #4 mentions that he witnessed an accident, myself I saw a foreman forget to slide the stock tube up on a singe spindle screw machine, the 1 3/8 inch hex aluminum bar took divots out of the concrete floor even though the machine did not move.
Funny thing about that linked video there is a roller stand next to the spinning bar, it does not look like it was anchored, but was probably used before the accident and worked. I have used a ladder with a piece of PVC pipe clamped to it in a pinch on machines that did not have a regular bar feed. Running production you need something better and fool proof.
 
I use a Sport bar support. Link to the thread here - https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...onger-than-my-spindle-254849/?highlight=sport
I run the spindle liner out through the support so the material is always enclosed. I bought this used, it had been changed a bit before I got it, had poly bushings that the material ran directly inside of. I believe Sport intended it to be right against the machine spindle, I spaced it away and extended the liner. The floor lags worked loose once on a job that vibrated, has been fine since. We run 4000 rpm max, because the machine doesn't go any faster.
 
Seen many things used like bob Mentioned.
for my manual lathe I use my manual mill table to hold a pc of 1/2" conduant clamped to the mill table been doing so for 30 years.
on the cnc I go bar feeds. slow rps

I have seen tables used for 20 foot steel pipe on a bank of manual lathes for threading, they thread on both sides and have lathes on both sides of there table. pretty f'n cool for manual production work.
one of my numb nut friends used 2 55 gallon drum with wooden v blocks on top for 12 foot randoms up to 2" dia, dumb but it worked and they been doing that for 20+ years on a hitachi seiki cnc lathe.

Until you witness a 8000 lb machine lift off the ground turn about 30 degrees in mid air then land with a thump you will never understand or appreciate a solid heavy bar feeder.

Can't say I have seen that, but did get to witness first hand a 3" diameter piece of steel (prolly crs) get bent by a 1200ton press until it broke into 3 or 4 pieces!:eek: One of them put a hole in the roof before landing.
 








 
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