Hi All,

Just wanted to post some images of the lathe I have been working on for the last few months!  It still needs lots of love, but it is coming along.

Thanks for looking!
Dustin

That is a nice looking chunk of iron you've got there Dustin.
Good mass ...... looks very rigid.
I'd like to find something similar.
Keep us posted of your progress.
Thanks,
RC

Looks nice, please keep us posted. 

I have a Mori Seiki SL1 I plan to retrofit someday and I could use your knowledge learned on this build for sure !

Nice looking lathe
Is the tailstock powered? Wish mine had a powered tailstock, its on the todo list but need to find a ballscrew long enough and cheap enough first
What swing and bore does it have?

Hood

Thanks for the comments all, I will try to keep posting comments/pics as it comes along.

Hood, The tailstock is powered, hydraulic.  It has ~ 3in of stroke.  I am not exactly sure how it all works yet, but you can basically set the force with a pressure regulator and then run the hydraulics with a solenoid valve.

It will swing 20in over the bed, and there is a 10in gap at the chuck where it could swing something huge, not sure how big.  There is a 2in spindle hole, but with the hydraulic chuck actuator installed it is 1.625.

Thanks you all for looking!
Dustin

The hydraulics you mention, do they move the tailstock along the bed or are you just meaning the quill? Mine has hydraulic quill but it is manually positioned and clamped on the bed.

 I originally had a closed center Hyd chuck on mine but I need through spindle for the work I do and was going to get an open center chuck but it would have reduced the bore down to about 2.5 inch which is too small for some of the shafts I do, so I just have a manual chuck. Its no big deal for me because I don't do mass production, most of my work is one offs.

Turret looks nice, like the 8 positions, mine is only six and a front toolpost with 4 positions, going to replace the front post with another 6 pos turret though

Hood

Hi Hood,

Yea, they just move the quill, I figured you meant you wanted to move the whole thing after I thought about it awhile, getting a long enough ball screw for the quill would probably not be a problem :-)

Sounds like your spindle has a big thru-hole! That would be nice for lots of stuff.  This guy is mostly going to be making pulleys for my other company www.altmount.com, we make serpentine belt kits for boat engine alternators.  I am really looking forward to having a nice lathe!

Your turret expansion project sounds cool!

Dustin

Nice pulleys
Most of my work is boat related but mainly commercial fishing boats rather than pleasure craft.
Hood

Nice Lathe Dustin...are you sticking with the original servos..? What drives will you be using..?
Looking forward to seeing the finished lathe!!
John

The Drives look like VIPER 200s ?