Adding big swing capabilities to lathe

[jwmay]

There’s a model engineer from the UK I believe that has a rig he built for getting more capacity. I didn’t save the link because I don’t want to deal with overly large pieces of metal to begin with. But just saying, if you head down this rabbit hole, there’s more to find. Lol

 

[rwm]

Love it. I've taken to using the mill as a lathe in some situations. It's good for short parts that need a bigger swing than my small lathe can handle.

Clever also. I never thought of that.

 

[pontiac428]

That is a terrifying amount of offset on those joints. Spooky stuff.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

And when they have an Aw-shucks moment, I believe it would be Really Bad, in the realm of needing more than ten Atta-boys to redeem.

The term for this is "Death on a stick".

Its cheap, convenient and pleasing, but will kill you in the end, kinda like those corndogs and fried snickers at the fair.

I wonder what that piece is they are cutting? Looks like some sort of gearcase

That is a soviet space shuttle transmission adapter.

They could never get their space transmissions to work right so they stub in one of ours to get that thing going.

That is a terrifying amount of offset on those joints. Spooky stuff.

I was thinking about that.

Id rather have a gear running off of the top of the spindle working with one attached to a face plate. With the correct layout you could probably set it up with a straight shaft and get that whole works back up near the headstock.

 

[jwmay]

Found it. This is gear driven.

 

[Lo-Fi]

Clever also. I never thought of that.

Thanks! I re-machined the bore of my spindle in situ with a turning tool crudely held in the vise after replacing the bearings. It worked so well I decided to try some more turning ops.... Turns out, the mills power and rigidity make turning quite a pleasure. Who knew!

I've also been known to use the dividing head with a lathe tool mounted for turning radii on awkward jobs mounted in the spindle; a job for which it excels.

 

[Jake M]

Kind of reminds me of Kieth Fenner line boring a (Volkswagen?) engine block on his lathe some years back.

Crazy! I was hoping they would show it making a cut.

It came up for me in the previews after the original one, grabbed it for you.

 

[455dan]

That is a terrifying amount of offset on those joints. Spooky stuff.

At least they appear to be " CV " joints not standard cross style. That should buy about 14 more degrees, but does look pretty steep. Some vehicles will push standard CVs to 36 degrees as acceptable angles at the outer hub.

 

[RJSakowski]

Clever also. I never thought of that.

I have used my Tormach CNC mill as a lathe for those little jobs where a CNC lathe is needed To extend the work envelope, I designed this tool holder. It uses the OEM 4 way tool holder from my G0602 lathe. I can adjust it vertically in 1" increments to optimize the available space

 

[Aaron_W]

Spacer blocks and other means for enlarging a lathe's swing were factory options for quite a few vintage lathes. It is not always a DIY cludge.

In the 1930s Hardinge offered their Cataract lathes as a 7" lathe which could be ordered with blocks to enlarge it to 9". Their larger quick change lathe was a 9" which could have blocks enlarging it to as large as a 15" swing.

Sherline offers a similar system of blocks to enlarge their 3.5" lathes to a 6" swing.


Logan offered a geared auxiliary head for their 11" lathes that increased swing to 16"



I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones I know of.