Glass working lathe

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One of the most important tools for working with glass will be glassworking lathe. I decided to build one by myself, commercial solutions are too expensive or aren’t available.. It will consists of four ball bearings, two dc motors, one linear bearing, several aluminum profiles and some minor parts.. Synchronizing of the chucks will be done manually by setting the slave motor rpm according to master one. I hope it will work I don’t have needed skills to do it by one shaft or something like that..

the material..

 

200 rpm dc motors (5kg.cm-1)

 

small bearing for motor shaft, notice the “CSSR”, it must be 20 years old, 1$ per piece.

 

large, covered bearing, the tubes will be placed inside that..

 

original packaging, made in Slovakia, 5$ per piece.

 

linear bearings in the middle..

 

 

This holes were really hard to make, 2 hours of cutting, 2 hours of filing. This photo was taken before filing. I hope “filing” is right expression.. File .. filing?

 

 

After filing..

 

Before drilling and joining together by screws..

 

Buying covered bearing wasn’t the best idea, it was very hard to rotate with it, really stiffly. This kind of bearing contains dense lubricant for all the lifetime of the bearing, so it mu I decided to remove the covering, and lubricate it with something thin – oil.

 

disassembled, notice the lubricant..

 

 

washed, on the right..

 

drying..

 

joined together..

 

these screws will hold the tubes inside the aluminum tube.

 

simple chuck..