It is threaded 3/4"-16 to fit the headstock of the lathe. The slots allow you to use bolts to attach to a workpiece that is too oddly shaped to cut in a chuck. In this case, I am trying to clean up a 3" diameter x 1" thick piece of steel into an even and pretty cylinder that I can use for a counterweight on the existing EQ1 mount. Trying to get a smooth turn of this piece of rough steel in a chuck is pretty much impossible.
So I tapped 1/4"-20 holes in the workpiece and bolted it to the back plate:
The problem is that I did not think about the need to get the holes exactly symmetrical so it is still hard to cut, and Sherline lathes are barely powerful enough to cut steel. (At least with me using it.)
I could put fresh holes more precisely located. But I am tired.
Oh yes. In case if you decide to use this back plate on your Sherline lathe, a warning: removing this back plate is not as easy as removing a chuck. There is a hole for the Tommy bars in the chuck and the headstock. This simplifies removal of the chuck. The general purpose back plate has no equivalent Tommy bar hole. I was able to remove it anyway by putting a C-clamp on the workpiece while holding the spindle in position with a Tommy bar. A better solution was to put a .153" hole in the edge of the workpiece so I could use two Tommy bars to remove.
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