Thread: Bridgeport speed handle

A few days ago the bodgy old quill handle on my bridgeport finally became too much for me to handle so i decided to make a loose clone of the twin-grip style made by High Quality tools in the US, It allows quick re positioning of the quill handle. I have used one of theirs and loved it but couldn't pay the extreme postage out here. I designed this on the fly as i was making it and its really over-complex for what it is, its also a bit clumsy looking but i guess that just lets it blend in with all my other shop made junk.

For the moment the forum isnt allowing image uploads so ill pop in links to my google drive. Ill edit this ASAP.

The dividing head is new (to me), and has had a fairly hard life its off a victoria universal mill and is really a bit big, i would ideally like a smaller one so i can get it vertically under the head with some breathing room. Also having a 4 jaw is fairly annoying as 40 turns to sweep the part really adds time to the setup, I will have to rectify that asap.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RmgoNvdyI85C9h2mKzeQMNAB-7EJ_yRGIw/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IRb...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EgG...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uuk...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmt...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q6L...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tiP...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zTL...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SmQ...ew?usp=sharing

The stainless flat spring i made initially (shown in one of those photos) was not a success so I have since made one up from spring steel crate strapping. If i was designing this again I would use a compression coil spring but i didnt have any of a small enough diameter.

Very nice work. Your new quill handle has come at a perfect time. My new to me mill has no quill handle. I have been looking at the spring loaded quick adjust ones similar to yours on ebay but figure I really should make one.

I'd be interested to see yours completely disassembled.

Cheers

Simon

Quality work!

Simon I have tried to make a sort of exploded diagram photo, it might not make much sense though, where the locking pin attaches to the arm is slotted and that is key to assembly (its then retained by a bump in that slot that engages the detent in the locking pin) Its all a bit gimcrack, If you needed i could cad up a more sensible design. The only difficult setup is the tapered hole to allow the arm enough movement, milling half a hole away with a long reach endmill on an angle seems to be a recipe for walking off centre.

Regards20170711_212003.jpg20170711_212040.jpg

Hi cask.

Thanks heaps for the effort you have gone to. It gives me a good basis for me to make my own similar design.

I see the detent ball that locks the handle assembly onto the shaft of the quill. Wrt the lever, is that have spring loading so as to keep the engaging pin located in a choosen hole?

Cheers.

Simon

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

Hi Simon yeah, thats what the the flat black leaf springs on the left are for, I had to double stack them to get enough resistance, one of the earlier photos i posted showed it assembled with the little leaf held on the small m3 hole at the top, hope that helps.