curtistactical wrote:When I started out years ago with a small Atlas lathe I would just stick the bar in the cut off saw and cut the baffle off that way instead of using a parting blade. With a cut off blade it all comes down to rigidity of the machine, there is a lot of force involved there. Just food for thought but I never liked using a cut off tool on a small lathe, you can pick up a small cut off saw at Harbor freight for around $200.
Joe
This. I have a smaller, less rigid lathe and use this technique when making baffles with integral spacers:
1) groove a little more than the finished wall thickness of the baffle integral spacer portion where you want to cut the baffle off
2) make a jig out of the tubing that you made the suppressor tube out of. Put a slot longitudinally about half the length of the tube and drill a hole 90 degrees from that for a bolt and nut.
3) put the baffle in the jig, cone side first
4) tighten down on the bolt through the hole in the tubing, clamping the baffle in the jig
5) use a cutoff saw to cut off the "puck" you were chucked on as close as you can get to the groove
6) put the baffle back in the chuck and bore out the integral spacer part without additional machining on the surface you grooved in step 1.
This would work for a non-integral spacer baffle as well. This method works great for smaller lathes without a large spindle bore where you have to just leave a short "puck" of bar to chuck on instead of a longer length of bar. It keeps everything nice and perpendicular because all locating surfaces are done without having to remove the workpiece from the chuck. I can't just put the baffle in my cutoff saw because there is not enough length of bar to clamp on to.