How to Free a Stuck Faceplate
George VondriskaDescription
Faceplates provide an easy way to get bowl blanks mounted on the lathe. One downside….the direction in which they spin is the same direction in which they tighten. That is, of course, a good thing when it comes to keeping the bowl blank on the lathe. But it can be a bad thing when it comes to getting the faceplate OFF the lathe. The more you turn, the tighter the faceplate gets. This can quickly lead to you trying to figure out how to free a stuck faceplate. No problem, we’ve got a solution for you.
Breaking it loose
Some faceplates are faceted so you can put a wrench on them. Others have a hole in them somewhere you can put a rod into for leverage. But if your faceplate doesn’t, or you don’t have the tool for the job, there’s another tool that’ll work. Run out to the garage and grab your oil filter wrench. This tool works perfectly to free a stuck faceplate. They are, after all, designed to grab round things. You’ll have plenty of leverage and plenty of torque, making it very simple to get the faceplate off.
So you like turning?
Lathe turning is a great hobby, and very addictive. It’s one of the few things you can do in woodworking that provides nearly instant gratification. You can get many projects on and off the lathe in no time. If you want to expand your lathe turning repertoire, be sure to look at our woodturning videos.
Helping you in the shop
Like freeing a stuck faceplate, we all run into hurdles in the shop that we need help overcoming. That’s why WoodWorkers Guild of America is big on tips and tricks. Anytime you’re stumbling a little in the shop, remember that we have more shop tips available to help you out.
After a few hours of bowl turning, I wanted to get this faceplate off the lathe. So I lock the spindle and then, no matter what I did, that is not coming off. And on this particular faceplate, there is a hole in here, I could put a rod in here, but there's no flat, I can't put a wrench on here. And I hate to throw a pipe wrench or slip locks or something on there, 'cause I don't wanna scar up that metal. So what I did is, I ran out to the garage, where I spin a wrench on cars, and we're gonna take care of this problem by borrowing from the automotive world. This is an oil filter wrench. So the way it works is that, when I turn this, those fingers just close in on themselves. And of course, that's how I take an oil filter off a car. And I drop that under a car all the time too. So what'll work here, I think, is we're gonna get those grips on the dummy board on that faceplate. Let 'em do their thing. Get some leverage on this. That took some oomph, huh? There's no way I would've spun that off by hand. So, if you run into this scenario, faceplate is stuck. Check out your oil filter spanner wrench and use that to get it off.
Easier by far is to make sure it never gets stuck in the first place. I put a plastic ring/washer/gasket (available from a couple of online stores at least) on the spindle before putting on the face plate. It NEVER gets stuck now. And you can make one fairly easily if you have any kind of 1/32 to 1/16 plastic (especially that UHMW plastic, which is slick), and you drill through with a 1" (maybe slightly larger) forstner bit, then cut around the permeter so that there is a width of the ring of about 1/4". This is the sizing needed for a 1" x 8tpi spindle. You'll have to size it for your lathe. You'll find that you can always unscrew a face plate with finger pressure.