Fixing a Levin Toolrest

The detent screw on one of our Levin lathes was stripped out rendering the part useless.  For my school volunteer hours this quarter I made a new post and installed it into the slide attachment.

The primary difficulty here was turning down the chunk of steel on a lathe using a 3-jaw chuck which didn't give me the best grip.  Unfortunately we don't have a lathe that can use a regular collet to accept these larger diameters.  Despite the cutter digging in and dislodging the workpiece on a couple of occasions I was able to turn the lower diameter down to where I could use a normal collet to hold the piece and finish forming the top.

To cut out the core I first used a end mill followed by some reamers on the Bridgeport milling machine in the basement. Finally, the detent hole and threads were formed using a drillbit and a simple tap.

The finished post, pressed into position