Best material for a barrel spider ?

[Riesel]

OK, my wife is afraid of spiders and they make me nervous as well

 

[JasonT]

Part of my scrap box

Butch that looks like my "useful stock" pile! Haha

 

[butchlambert]

Jason, I was lucky back in the day. I once had a Bud going out of the SS business. I was given a lot of 303 round from 5'-12' in length and from 3/4"-6" in diameter. Picked up some 17-4 in condition 1150. I have a lot of 303 drops about 20" long. About 15 years ago a couple plants in Paris, Tx sold a lot of aluminum fixtures and drops. Bought what you can see in this pile was $.50 a pound.
I do have much more than I will ever use, but it is worth way more than I have invested.

 

[JasonT]

Jason, I was lucky back in the day. I once had a Bud going out of the SS business. I was given a lot of 303 round from 5'-12' in length and from 3/4"-6" in diameter. Picked up some 17-4 in condition 1150. I have a lot of 303 drops about 20" long. About 15 years ago a couple plants in Paris, Tx sold a lot of aluminum fixtures and drops. Bought what you can see in this pile was $.50 a pound.
I do have much more than I will ever use, but it is worth way more than I have invested.

Wow that's amazing!!! I'm quite jealous haha - quite a good stroke of luck though! Let me know if you need another home for any of it

I was fortunate that a local machine shop was closing and got some precision ground O1 tool steel for about 0.50 a pound. I still use it to this day for small, precise fixtures. Also picked up $1000 worth of carbide end mills, boring bars, and lathe bits for $75.

 

[Spaghetti Western]

This is the gimballing collet fixture i built, in preference to the more conventional dual spiders setup.
My logic behind it being that i wanted the most rigidity acheivable, & have the angular adjustment seperate of the clamping function - where as with a spider, you are constantly trying to balance screw pressures between sufficient clamping force, bringing the throat/leade area of the bore into alignment with your spindle, and all without unduly deflecting the barrel.

Just figured this to be the best practice solution i could come up with, short of splashing out on a cnc mill, helical interpolation & live tooling. Seems to be working well so far.

The collet nose can be changed out & I fit a "universal action attachment" in its place for truing work, on non cylindrical actions. The first action trued in this fixture was a Ross 1905,

 

[carlsbad]

You might check around and see if they make a thick back plate, and use it to make a spider.

Hal

I like to minimize machining of cast iron because the abrasive dust gets everywhere. I make mine with a cast iron back plate, an aluminum ring bolted and interference pinned onto the plate with 1/2-20 set screws with brass tips. I use aluminum because I have a 4' section of 5" diameter aluminum left over from another project. Steel would be fine too but the aluminum in this application is plenty strong. It won't move. 6061 aluminum has the same yield strength as hot rolled steel.

I'll try to remember to take a photo. I think the pins are a pretty good plan to make sure nothing ever moves.

--Jerry

 

[carlsbad]

SpagettiWestern, that is a sweet setup. --Jerry