About the miter clamp, and hand wheel. Does anyone here do metal casting?

[dbhost]

The discussion about hte miter fence being unstable and the link to that oh so beautiful miter fence clamp has me thinking ont thing...

My handwheel terrifies me.

I am certain one day it will break off in my hand as I overly eagerly run the blade up to do a blade change....

And then my brain got to thinking something stupid.. or not..

I know there USED to be options for metal handwheels for the BT3x00, early BT3000s had them, and there were aftermarket wheels that fit and adapters to mount more standdar ones...

But has anyone tried taking say the handwheel from a BT3100, and using it to make a mold to cast a new aluminum handwheel?

The process looks simple, but I don't want to, well get a forge to melt down enough aluminum, and enough casting sand to make the mold to make ONE cast aluminum handwheel...

Does anyone else here do this sort of thing, or have any friends that do that would be interested in knocking a few out for members here at a reasonable cost?

I know in my case, I can work the pieces once cast, cut off casting slag, smoothing, polishing, and if we are lucky enough to do the wheel AND the knob drilling and tapping the threads...

Heck if they are local to HOUTX I can even provide the aluminum given about 2 weeks notice (my neighbors would happily contribute soda / beer cans to the cause!)

Am I the only one here thinking this?

[LCHIEN]

Sometime back I bought the adapter off eBay to adapt a standard 4 or 5" handwheel with a 1/2" shaft hole to the BT3000/3100 oddball handwheel shaft. Handwheels with 4-5" and a 1/2" hole for a shaft are readily available if you look around.

I found a handwheel at the time and connected it to my adapter. I never installed it on my BT3 because, well, it wasn't broken and I could not get the bolt free that holds the existing handwheel on. I hear its got some locktite that needs to be broken loose but I just did not feel like forcing it - you know, not broken, don't fix it.. But should I want to or need to replace it I have a nice metal one ready. I am sure a impact driver will back out that stuck bolt holding my wheel on.

I did make a drawing of the adapter as I shamelessly reverse engineered it and it is attached below. Its not hard to make, probably a 3D printed part will be strong enough. I got a nice handwheel from Grizzly but its no longer available. The existing BT3 handwheels are 4.5" diameter, a 5" will doubtlessly work fine although at one I do recall someone saying that the rip fence locking lever locked position hit their larger handwheel crank if they were both unfortunately located (very small chance).







Check out these old links

https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...dapter-drawing

https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...887#post839887

https://www.google.com/search?q=hand...2+shaft&oq=han dwheel+5%22+with+1%2F2%22+shaft&aqs=chrome..69i57j 33i160l2.10004j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[capncarl]

McMaster Carr offers a very wide selection of metal hand wheels in about any configuration you can dream of.

[LCHIEN]

Except with a BT3000 shaft fitting
But yeah, 4, or 5 inch with or without crank and with 3/8 or 1/2" shaft holes with various D- and slot keying.

[Jim Frye]

I took the plastic hand wheel from my BT3100 and filled it with lead shot and epoxy. It's probably more durable than the cast aluminum one on my BT3000. I've done this with every plastic knob and hollow part on every tool in my shop even the hollow aluminum parts. My lathe has multiple parts filled with this mixture. Even the lower bed rails are aluminum channel filled with the matrix. The upper bed rail supports and the tail stock are aluminum die castings filled with it. There is even a 6" diameter x 3/4" thick disk of it under the headstock for added mass. As a result, the lathe weighs 125 pounds.

[dbhost]

Where do you get the shot? If I considered doing something similar using bbs

[Jim Frye]

I bought mine at a local Gander Mountain store that is now closed, but Bass Pro Shops and Cabella's carry it. Any store that sells reloading supplies will have it, like gun stores. I used number 7.5 shot because it is small and fills smaller cavities better. Lead shot can't be used for hunting anymore and may be hard to find. Steel shot will work just as well, just not quite as much mass.

[dbhost]

Jim Frye Sorry I miss typed. I meant the epoxy resin. Sounds like you are going to use way more than what the little tubes of 2 part epoxy will handle. I know Epoxy resin can get kind of spendy...

[Jim Frye]

I was using West Systems epoxy thinned slightly to retard curing so it could be poured into one corner of the cavity and allowed to flow out through the fill. This forced the air out from between the shot and then self leveled. I actually bought the stuff at a local Ace Hardware store. We lived in an area with a lot of boating and the store carried the epoxy products for boat maintenance. At the time HD also carried pourable epoxy for similar uses. It came in quarts. I haven't looked for this use for quite some time. What are folks using for the epoxy in river tables?

[Jim Frye]

Forgot to mention that if you are using a very small shot size, the shot will occupy the majority of the volume of the cavity, so not that much epoxy is needed to fill any voids left.

[GrumpyDad]

I might have a solution that is being overlooked. The craftsmen BT3 versions had a metal handwheel and a metal adapter similar to the drawing above. I will round up some pictures. If I am correct I have 3 in my stock.

[LCHIEN]

Those adapters for the 21829 no longer available from parts suppliers. Nice that you have a couple stashed.

[dbhost]

Looks like Mcmaster Carr has plenty of 4 and 5" handwheels that have unmachined hubs, so would need a machinist to set up the mount. Would be pretty nice to see a 3 spoke maybe a 5" milled for the BT....