Fusion Message Board

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Subject: Re: Parts ideas...comments please!
Date: Sep 26, 2:42 am
Poster: Dave Cooper

On Sep 26, 2:42 am, Dave Cooper wrote:


>Dave, I'm still a little confused about how to do it. We have a lathe, just no chucks that will get around the flange, so the problem is how to get it centered and secure on the lathe. I may have circumvented the problem for now, though- I just found some 10" conflat flanges that have an 8" bore for $50! I like that price...
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Carl - For a 10" flange you would of course need a pretty large chuck, to get outside it.
One way to get the flange opening cut is as Richard Hull suggests above.... use a milling machine with a rotary table.

However to maching your parts on the lathe without a large chuck, you will need to make some sort of face plate-like fixture to fit a chuck you have. Actually a faceplate would work. It would need to be a little larger than the flange bolt circle. The two hemispheres need to be reasonably well centered, so you would need to be careful in attaching each flange in about the same place. But... if you take your time and center them on the faceplate using a dial indicator on the flange OD, then you should be able to get them centered within a few thousandths. Rather like a crude 4 jaw chuck.
Further, if you mount both at once, then they come out on center with only one setup effort.

The thought of hogging out about 8" of stainless is just a little daunting,but you could do it.
Getting a local machine shop's help here could be the best alternative.

Dave Cooper.