Projects

Because I could not find a suitable carriage stop for the Emcomat 8.6, I made one myself—with files, improvised setups, and a lathe temporarily turned into a hand-operated slow shaper. The route included two shaping tools, a broken tap, a sacrificed carbide drill, and a surprisingly effective clamping mechanism.

Suitable T-nuts for the Emcomat emerged from C45—without a milling machine, but with a lathe, drill stand, shim stock, and a homemade slitting-saw holder. Two holes ended up slightly off-center; the rest were a clear improvement over the hex-head screws used before.

An extra 25 millimeters of jaw width did not sound particularly dramatic. The old ZAG 150 turned out to be an enormous but surprisingly smooth-running bench vise. Its restoration involved rust, old paint, a questionable welded base plate, and a hidden screw-retaining pin—while the measurable slide clearance was deliberately left alone.

The old Tormek 1200 basically worked, but the Universal Support moved around far more than I liked. A new aluminum bridge, Igus bushings, and threaded inserts produced a much more stable guide that still adjusts smoothly.

A 12 mm aluminum disc became a dedicated lathe backplate for a 125 mm independent four-jaw chuck. The Emcomat machined the critical fits itself – using a temporary M12 mounting thread, face runout adjusted to approximately 0.02 mm, and with a thin outer rim that rightly raised questions about stiffness.

A simple aluminum adapter plate lets me mount a small machine vise on the Emcomat 8.6 vertical milling slide. Several M8 threaded positions allow different setups – first with ordinary nuts, later with properly fitted T-nuts.

Four ball-lock clamping pins and ten drop-in stops were made long before I owned a lathe – using scrap material, bearing balls, standard screws, and a few improvised fixtures. They leave light marks, but they still work today.