Incredible YouTube video channel and machinist

I just found his channel a week ago, great content. His series on threading is very good.
 
I watched robins video last night and have been thinking about it off and on throughout the day. At fist I was surprised that someone with a HLV would be removing one of the major assemblies because it did not serve their purpose and re-engineering a home brewed replacement. This is a machine that some consider to be the best tool room lathe ever produced. And robins machine is not a machine begging for repairs, that compoond looks new. I guess if you are looking to consistently hold tenths and do it efficiently it makes sense. Honestly I think it would be worth it on the small import benchtops, the Atlases, and the smaller South bend machines- here the added stiffness would go a long way in an already low stiffness machine. For typical guys with larger lathes with more stiffness who don't have plus or minus a tenth tolerances on all their parts, it doesn't really make sense considering the cost and effort to make, the time to switchover when you want to use the compound and the loss of adaptability when you don't have the quantity of tooling Robin does to cover every situation. I don't have 50+ tool holders and I'm always scrambling to find a cutter option that will get the job done. I also frequently change the angle of my tool post for cutter clearance and in some cases to change the angle of approach with say a boring bar to minimize chatter to improve surface finish. This doesn't appear to be possible with this setup. Id like to hear others thoughts but to me the drop in versatility given more limited cutter and holder options isn't worth it unless you have a bench tip size machine or like the author your working to precision at quantities most hobbiests are not. That being said I'm going to binge watch Robin's channel- thanks for the link I had never seen him before.
 
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I'm thinking of making something similar for my Logan 210 lathe. I could make something that would bolt to the existing cross slide, but it seems like the best (certainly most rigid) approach would be to machine a single piece to completely replace the top slide i.e. with a dovetail cut into the bottom to fit the cross-slide ways, and about 3 inches high so my toolpost mounts on top. Maybe this is a dumb newbie question but - is there any reason not to make it that way, and any reason not to make it out of steel? The reason I ask is that I can get a suitable block of mild steel pretty cheap at the local used metal store, but cast iron not so much. Is steel sliding on the iron ways a bad idea, for wear or other reasons?
 
JayMcClellan said:
I'm thinking of making something similar for my Logan 210 lathe. I could make something that would bolt to the existing cross slide, but it seems like the best (certainly most rigid) approach would be to machine a single piece to completely replace the top slide i.e. with a dovetail cut into the bottom to fit the cross-slide ways, and about 3 inches high so my toolpost mounts on top. Maybe this is a dumb newbie question but - is there any reason not to make it that way, and any reason not to make it out of steel? The reason I ask is that I can get a suitable block of mild steel pretty cheap at the local used metal store, but cast iron not so much. Is steel sliding on the iron ways a bad idea, for wear or other reasons?
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That would work, but it is not a simple job, at least not if it is done right... The good news is that you would still have the original setup complete and unmodified for other uses. If you don't alter any of the original parts from the lathe, you can always go back to original if you don't like it or have problems in making it.
 
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