Faceplate
I decided to make a faceplate for the 7x lathe. It would have been easier to spend the $20 or $30 to buy one from the Little Machine Shop, but I wanted tapped holes instead of slots. 10-32 tapped holes will let me make use of the clamps and bolts I have for the Sherline equipment. I still had plenty of 1/4" aluminum plate left from the trade show booth, so I wanted to make use of that. I think that will be rigid enough for what I intend to use this for. I decided to make a hub because the center would be weakened by the recess that mates with the spindle shoulder. I took me a while to figure out how to make this, since I only have a 3" 3 jaw chuck, which isn't big enough to even hold the hub. I ended up making a mandrel to hold the hub for the first few operations, mounting the hub to the spindle to finish it up, and then mounting the faceplate to the hub to work on it. I wasn't concerned with the exact outer dimensions of both pieces, only that the faceplate didn't hit the ways. The diameter of the faceplate ended up being about 6-1/8". The only critical dimensions are the shoulders and mating recesses and the location of the mounting holes. Click on the pictures for larger images with captions.