Wednesday, Apr 4 2018
About this time last year I cut up some polycarbonate to make a chip guard for my lathe. It worked well until I got the guard too close to the chuck with the jaws extended near their maximum. The jaws hit the guard and cracked it. So today I made another.
New guard on lathe
Fits under dial indicator
I made this guard longer so it could better keep chips off of the lead screw. However, since making the dial indicator holder described on the previous page I’d also modified my carriage stop to hold a 1” indicator close to the chuck.
Sometimes I prefer an indicator on the left, other times on the right. Or both at the same time. In any case the 1/4" thick guard didn’t quite fit between the indicator and its mount. I used my mill to reduce the thickness where needed. The second picture shows the fit.
I’ll remember to remove the guard if the chuck jaws will be open wide enough to hit it.
Update: This guard cracked, too. Don’t know why this time. I replaced the plastic with some scrap leather.