My little South Bend 9" really struggled doing parting. I tried lots of
ways of sharpening HSS, tried insert cutoff holders in various widths,
tried tightening every gib until I could barely move anything. Of course,
I tried to always reduce overhang and vary speeds, and tried constant oil
drips, dry, you name it. Nothing worked well at all. Then I got two kits
from MLA. The first was a T-slot cross-slide, and the second was the rear
parting tool. With a parting tool mounted upside down in the rear, it
works really really a whole lot better. That's a good solution for a
small (8-12") lathe.

GWE