Experimental spindle spider.

[ETC57]

Hay Willie,
if you got some time how about a lesson on machining a barrel from blank to finished barrel? :)

I for one have always been fascinated by the chamber and riffling process
and how you arrive at the correct pitch for the rifling.

Jerry.

[Highpower]

Well Jerry that's a tall order.

There are a few videos on YouTube that shows the basics. There are a number of different methods and equipment choices to choose from, so everyone has there own way of doing things. Each of them being the BEST way of course.

This particular project is one of my own odd ball ideas, so who knows if will actually work out or not. Just something I wanted to try. This blank will be chambered in .22LR and has a 1:16 twist rate.

I'll try to get a few pics for you along the way though. ;)

[ETC57]

Thanks Willie.
Jerry.

[Mayhem]

I want to rummage through your scrap bin Willie!

Nice work on the spider. One is on my list of things to make. When I had my lead screw set up on the lathe for cleaning, I used some scrap wood wedges to stop it form flopping around.

[Highpower]

Back when I first bought my lathe and had very little tooling for it, I was working on a project that I used quite a bit of drill rod for. This was also before I had a band saw, and I was parting off from 6 foot lengths of stock.
I was just stuffing rags inside of the spindle around the drill rod where it stuck out of the back side of the lathe.

I got quite a surprise when one of the rags had shifted and allowed the stock to go off center. After the rod started whipping around it was only a matter of seconds before I had a 6 foot "L" wrench!

My very next project was making an outboard spider for the lathe.
Go figure...

Some lessons are learned the hard way. But those are the ones you'll never forget I suppose.