Fabricating and using a lathe spindle hand crank is a fairly common early
project for a new/beginning lathe user.. many lathe owners use the cranks
regularly, including myself.

It's no problem to unplug the lathe power cord before installing the crank,
which is the method I use, and recommend.

There are many advantages to using a hand crank which is often easier than
using power feed.
Lots of the imported bench lathes don't have spindle speeds low enough to
make power threading short pieces practical.

Not too long ago (a few weeks maybe) someone posted a link to a kit/plans
for building a manual lathe spindle crank that only engages when being
turned by hand.
I haven't seen one of that design, and I would most likely still unplug the
lathe's power cord.

I don't have any trouble unplugging the power cord of my small lathe, since
the power receptacle is located just to the rear of the left end of the
spindle.
I have a lock-out no-power switch position on my other machine.. and I also
pull the power cord plug on that one when doing anything that might result
in injury if the motor were to start.

Thousands of simple actions are dangerous if one is not aware of what
they're doing/paying attention.

--
WB
..........


"wolfgang" wrote in message
...

As others have cautioned above I too would not place a crank handle on
the back end of the lathe spindle. If you really must do this at
least make sure that it is statically balanced!

Instead I have a large hand wheel -6" or so- in diameter that I can
fix at the spindle back end for turning very short threads or
whatever.

The diagram posted by DoN above illustrates the use and position of
the spacer bar/rod as discussed earlier.

Wolfgang