Just got a lathe to retrofit

[Hood]

Got the holes bored and tapped in the housing and the half coupling fitted. Also decided to try and tig the locking nut together and it was a success so no need to make a new one Also machined station numbers into the turret plate. Put the turret back together and placed it on the front to see if it looked like it would fit, seems fine. Dont have any olives so cant start to fit it to the rear of the slide, that will probably  have to wait until next week but I still have the macro and the ladder to redo anyway.
Hood

[Sam]

Looks real nice Hood. You sure do have allot of work invested. Quality job you've done there.

[Hood]

Yes its been a lot of work but I couldnt find one that would suit me for the price I could afford Still got a bit to go yet but its getting closer now, just hope I dont make a balls up of it now
Hood

[Dan13]

Hi Hood,

Can you please show how the tool is fixed in the slot?

What steel is it? Aren't you going to have it plated? Your weather is the worst one could imagine for machine tools.

Dan

[Hood]

The tools are clamped by two screws that are threaded into a piece of flat bar. The flat bar will be held to the turret by a capscrew (you can see them at each position) At the moment I dont have the bar bored and countersunk for the capscrew so it is just held there by the pressure of the setscrews against the tool which pushes it up to the top of the slot. The only real purpose of the setscrew holding the bar in place is so that it doesnt fall out when no tool is there. The bar can be placed at top or bottom of the slot thus allowing right way up or upside down tool mounting.
Bar is just made of mild steel and the screws are made of EN8.
Wont bother plating anything, things are not too bad even though the sea is only 10m away from my workshop (sometimes closer ) and the air is full of salt, as you can see the rest of the lathe survives quite nicely without any plating
Pic of the clamp bar below.

Hood

[Dan13]

Thanks for the description, Hood. It is a nice solution. Just a thought here - looks like it might be better to have the screws' heads touching against the slot wall rather than the tool, as when tightened they would tend to drag the tool out of position.

So you have to use shims for height adjustments?

Interesting.. the sea here is a few kilometers away and everything picks up rust pretty quickly unless it is a good alloyed steel. Think it has to do with the air pollution levels as it's soaring here.

Dan

[Hood]

I thought that might be the case Dan but so far in testing it seems fine. It is the way a lot of turrets seem to clamp tools, certainly the way the Churhill 4/10's, that a friend has, do it.
If using the bolts the other way I would be concerned they would damage the turret slot (its probably only mild steel) thus making it hard to accurately seat tools upside down.

I may have to use shims although the slots seats should, if plans work out , be exactly 20mm below/above centre. As you know however tools are not that precise especially with standard tips so maybe a thin shim will be needed on some, time will tell.

My last workshop was a GRP cabin and in the summer was very hot and winter very cold, it suffered from a lot of condensation and things got a lot of surface rust but this workshop seems to be a bit better, the coolant seems to leave a film on the ways etc and dont have much of a problem with rust. As you say pollution may well be the contributing factor more than the salt for you, fortunately I am in an area where the air is quite clean

Hood

[Dan13]

Yes, using the bolts against the turret would damage it.

You're lucky to have clean air

Dan

[Overloaded]

Hood, my good man ...BEAUTIFUL work !
Been watching this as it progresses but have a couple of questions.
Does the hyd. pressure keep the curvic engaged  .... or does it have a mechanical engagement (Bellville's) ?
If it relies on hydraulic presssure, is there a sensor to monitor the pressure and report to the system if the pressure is inadequate ?
Id like to scale this down but need an alternative to the curvic as I don't see them offered in a smaller size.
Maybe pins and bushings ?  Or keys and slots ?
Again, NICE WORK !
Russ

[Dan13]

Id like to scale this down but need an alternative to the curvic as I don't see them offered in a smaller size.
Maybe pins and bushings ?  Or keys and slots ?

Russ,

You need them tapered for it to work at all. Otherwise a small lash and vibrations are inevitable. If you have an accurate enough CNC mill I think it wouldn't be a problem making one. If your mill isn't accurate you should still get around if you have a rotary table which would index one tooth at a time and the mill would cut each tooth at the same location, thus repeatability is guaranteed.

Dan