Baldor Lathe

[Maui]

I have a very old Baldor lathe that I just finished restoring. It wasn't very pretty when I bought it, but now I think that it looks a lot better. It runs silky smooth, and I'm glad I was able to save it from the scrap pile (yes, they were actually going to scrap it). Now I'm trying to find the tapered tips that can be installed on the ends of the shafts to hold polishing wheels. I have seen them on fleebay, but I was wondering if there is another place to purchase them? Any suggestions?

 

[larry_g]

https://www.google.com/search?q=den...IuNZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz


Try the above search for 'dental lathe attachments' and you will get a bunch of returns. You may also use the term; polishing lathe

lg
no neat sig line

 

[macgee]

Nice Maui,

Here's mine. Yours is the only one I've ever seen with the same casted base with Baldor written in the casting. I tried speaking to Baldor about age but the motor tag did not have a model number or serial that they could find. They must be really old.

I agree, search for dental lathe attachments, there's not a lot of sources for them, most are selling the same ones. I'm too looking for more for myself. Be mindful buying attachments for left and right threads.
Its really beneficial to get a bunch of them to mount all kind of different wheels. This is when dental lathe become very useful and speedy when working on project and quickly going though all the different steps.

EDIT: Here's my more recent made second one, its still old:

 

[rustyzman]

I went through this about a year ago at work. Bought 3 new Baldor dental lathes for deburring and polishing on some parts.

Mcmaster has some. https://www.mcmaster.com/mandrels/tapered-shaft-arbors-for-abrasive-wheels-and-brushes/

Henry Schein dental supply https://www.henryschein.com/us-en/Search.aspx?searchkeyWord=lathe&subtoclevel=1&pagenumber=4

This Jewelry supply has a lot as well. I recall they were very nice to work with. https://www.gesswein.com/c-459-all-polishing.aspx

In the end for most of it I made my own mandrels to fit our exact needs. As I recall, a No.5 taper pin reamer is the same taper as a D1 dental taper. You might have to shorten the reamer to get the diameter you are looking for without the mandrel being very long.

I have one of my own as well (11/63 mfg)and was very lucky to find an excellent Albrecht micro chuck in a D1 taper. That is super useful. Most of the cheap "Jacobs Style" chucks for these have so much runout they are almost useless for attachments.

If you can find an Albrecht in D1, you can then use attachments with just straight arbors like any Dremel type items. If you do make your own, brass is the way to go. It will mount tightly and not mar up those shafts. They originally make these units to a very tight tolerance and runout. The quality of the old ones is excellent, I prefer my older one to the new ones personally. The new ones I bought came with a report certificate detailing how much runout they had (it was less than .0005" if I recall).

Red Wing is the other big maker of these types of dental lathes.

 

[macgee]

Thanks Rusty for the post,

I totally forgot about McMaster-Carr. They sell good left and right dental tapers, made in the USA for a good price ($11ea).

I believe with Harry Schein, you'll need to create a wholesale account with them?

I think Jet Inc also sells inexpensive dental taper arbors and mandrels, it's been a while since I've looked but pretty sure they do: https://jetsinc.com

In regards to dental taper, I believe I read somewhere that it's an American Taper at .250"/foot. So I think it's a No.7 taper pin reamer and not a #5? But as you said, you will need to trim the reamer down.

Having a Albrecht with a D1 taper is a total score and very scarce; you did well. There's another good one but hard to find; it's called Handler #18 keyless chuck and has the D1 (dental taper) but there still pricey $120-ish.

I almost feel like getting one those Taiwan keyless drill J0 or J1 sensitive drill chucks (Albrecht knockoff) for $40, take it apart, mount it on the lathe and see if I can put an accurate female dental taper on it. Like you said, having a good chuck (with low runout) for it is very useful.

 

[rustyzman]

Good call on the Taper pin reamer size. Working from memory only on that one. I will have to dig it out and check. That Project is done for now so some of the details are becoming increasingly fuzzy...

Henry Schein absolutely might be commercial only. It was all through work, so the purchasing dept. took care of the paperwork.

The Handler sounds very nice, have to look into that.
I will have to check out the offerings at Jet as well.

I have bought a couple import Albrecht style chucks off ebay in the J1 taper and the quality/runout is pretty bad. Mounted on straight arbors for smaller drills in the Bridgeport. I can make them work OK, but it is really luck of the draw on whether you get a good one or not...

 

[macgee]

I will have to check out the offerings at Jet as well.

I have bought a couple import Albrecht style chucks off ebay in the J1 taper and the quality/runout is pretty bad. Mounted on straight arbors for smaller drills in the Bridgeport. I can make them work OK, but it is really luck of the draw on whether you get a good one or not...

Good to know and bummer about them having bad runout. I just bought an Electro Mechanco sensitive drill press today that needs a small JT0 chuck and not really feeling the joy on paying the $200+ for a new one. Price are a bit crazy for them and was hopping the knock-off were ok. I have a 5/8" cap version with .0008" so no complaints there and I guess I got very lucky.

Today I stopped by Jet Inc as I had a bunch of vintage Foredoms needing new flex shafts. The owner showed up and directly helped me and set up me with what I needed; we was very nice and helpful. He also sold me a Baldor Dental Taper arbor for buffing wheels, they had left and right version (see pic). They were $16 and has an aggressive thread for the buffing wheels. They however did not have the screw-on arbors for craytex and other wheels. So I'll have to search around for those.