Snapping a crutch.

[arutha]

I had an unfortunate mishap yesterday, I bent a brass crutch out of the way so I could polish and straighten the pivots on the pallet arbor. The crutch was friction tight and I didnt want to pull it off of the arbor incase it made it too loose. The crutch snapped off right by the collet. To fix this I filed the snapped end to a small pivot and drilled a hole in the collet to accept it. A little silver solder and all as good as new. Just thought I would post this up should anyone else ever have this problem.

[willofiam]

Hey Paul, I have not had the mishap you have had yet it sounds like you may have solved your dilemma , I have although taken the clutch system off the arbor and refit to make it tight again, a whole process that actually worked well in resizing the collet to fit tight again, I found a hole in a steel bench block that was just a smidgen smaller than the collet, carefully hammered it into the hole and it squished the brass collet to a little smaller size, I was able to stake it tightly back onto the arbor. I suppose one could make a new one on the lathe. Also I have used the watchmakers lathe and left the crutch on by moving my headstock to the very end of the lathe bed allowing the crutch to swing freely. Using a bench type reference tool I have gives me a steady point for straightening the pivot. It is a little daunting having that crutch swinging around while coming in from the end to do the pivot polishing, slow and steady so as not to catch the crutch, Hope that makes sense. William

[arutha]

That made perfect sense William,
I couldnt mount the arbor as it was in the lathe and the crutch would have hit the bed, it is quite a long one, I should have just removed it instead of being lazy and just trying to bend it.
An important lesson learned, dont take shortcuts, it will come back to bite you in the backside and you will end up spending twice as much time on the job than if you had done the job properly in the first place.

[willofiam]

Hey Paul, It just hit me… I wounder if there is a way to chuck up a tool in the lathe and THEN move something like this crutch arbor into the piece in the lathe. Just brainstorming but wondering if something like a stake fitting fairly close to pivot and using that to straighten, polish or burnish the pivot, kind of reversing the idea of how we normally do it, OR a hardwood dowel with a snug fit on the pivot could burnish…..Just me thinking out loud, any other ideas out there?????? William

[arutha]

I think the biggest problem with that would be finding something that woould fit all of your different sized pivots, it would require something like a jacot drum but without the outside edge removed so you have complete holes and you would need some sort of tool for prepping the inside of holes, and when you consider how hard you press with a burnisher, the holes would have to be a good fit. Nice idea but I am sure if something was possible it would have been designed years ago. But now you have got me thinking!

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