[Shop-talk] turning the end of a bolt.

[Dave Cavanaugh]

Put another nut (or two) the the same size as the bolt head on the 
threaded portion, run it down to the bottom of the threads, align all 
the flat faces and put it in the chuck.  It'll be straight enough.  The 
nut or nuts don't need to be tight, they are just there for alignment in 
the jaws.

On 8/8/2016 1:25 PM, Mike Rambour wrote:
>  I have a 1/2" bolt that I need to do 2 things to the end of the 
> bolt.  I need to drill a .125 hole in the middle for about a half-inch 
> and turn the end down to .39, the bolt itself is 2.5 long and 1/2" 
> diameter.
>
>  I tried chucking it up in my 3 jaw chuck and I can't get tightened 
> down without wobbling all over and the hole I need to drill would not 
> end up in the middle of the bolt, also the turned down part would 
> never be right.  I have tried quite a few different things to get 
> tightened down without wobbling all without success.  The lathe 
> (shoptask bridgemill) came with a 4 jaw chuck that i never installed, 
> would that help ?  I am at the point where I am thinking of cutting 
> off the bolt head, doing the machining and then welding the bolt head 
> back on.
>
>  This is non-critical part, so not worried about strength, just needs 
> to be finger tight when installed but that .39 x .450 long machined 
> end  with the hold is critical to fit.
>
>  I am NOT a machinist by any stretch of the imagination, I bought this 
> shoptask 5 years ago and only used it once so far, I had a old 
> sherline mini lathe that was way under powered for what I did with it 
> and I used a lot so I decided with a bigger lathe I would get to do 
> more things...I was wrong.  I don't know what I am doing and sometimes 
> too scared to try and mess up my parts.
>
>  But I am getting to the point in my current project where I can see 
> use for this thing.  I have a plate that I need to mill down and 
> instead of taking it to a shop to have it done, I am going to try it 
> on my own, its just a carburetor spacer, nothing critical measurement 
> wise.  If I mess it up, its only a $20 part that I can buy, so I will 
> try it out.
>
>  Once I get past this bolt thing...
>
>     mike
>
>


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