Off with the hand wheels - make up some spacers

Right, having figured out how dumb I was to retain the handwheels on the Blidgeport conversion, let's do something about it.

Look how ginormous the damned things are. These are cast iron mothers....

Once these are removed, there will need to be something in their place - the bearings have to be clamped up tight and the motor / belt drive housing will have a bloody great hole in the front otherwise. That hole was to clear the back of the handwheel.

Here's a piece of mystery 'loominum - probably 6061, as I'm fairly certain it came from Canada. This will be for the LH end of the X axis ballscrew. Using a CCGT polished, uncoated tip gives a nice finish:

Fitted - seems to work. The bore is 16.5mm on a 16mm shaft due to the drill I had available, so there is a bit of slop. Just holding it in place here but at final assembly, it just took a bit of tightening and tapping to get it aligned:

Now for the Y axis. Another piece of mystery metal, slightly larger this time:

Getting there. The reduced shoulder is to make contact with the pulley and the larger diameter is to shield the opening.

Ready to part off, setting up the Iscar parting tool. This is their uncoated insert, specifically for 'loominum:

A bit of video of it in action. 500rpm, 5''' per rev (IIRC). Didn't complain:

Job done - nice finish:

Chamfer:

Offer it up. Looks OK:

Here's the full complement of handwheels to be stashed in the cupboard:

Now to finally assemble them.....