On 2007-12-21, Trevor Jones wrote:
ol3_m3 wrote:

[ ... ]

Have a ten inch atlas lathe, do not want to get into an expensive
deep hole drill or high pressure coolant systems, any ideas on a low
tech solution to deep hole drilling.
any one have a source of supply for extra long drills and reamers?

[ ... ]

Pick a drill a little smaller than your finished size.

Bore out the bore with a between centers boring bar, with the part
clamped up on the cross-slide.

Unfortunately, the Atlas lathe in question does not have T-slots
on the cross-slide for mounting a workpiece. They are somewhat less
common here in the USA than in your locale. The majority of the
cross-slide for this lathe is somewhat round topped -- or at best not
machined flat and fitted with T-slots.

The best bet for that would be a milling attachment for that
specific lathe, which mounts in place of the compound on the dovetailed
round projection around which the compound rotates.

Even my Clausing (a somewhat more robust lathe) has the compound
mounted by a round boss which projects down into the cross-slide, and it
is secured by T-bolts in a circular T-slot in the cross slide
surrounding the hole for the boss. Not exactly what you would want for
mounting a workpiece on the cross-slide.

Now -- if I had the cross-slide which was a companion to the bed
turret (capstan) for my lathe, it would have sets of T-slots.

A Myford, of course, would have the T-slots -- and is probably
what you are most familiar with.

You might even do the drilling in the lathe, holding the steel rod, in
the chuck.

Ugly, but cheap and effective.

Reamers long enough to cover a 12 inch hole are gonna be non-trivial
expensive.

Amen! I would say that learning to make a gun drill would be
the better approach.

Certainly purchased long drills (aircraft drills are available
in 12" lengths) would be highly unlikely to approximate a straight hole. :-)

Given the time you have spent asking how to accomplish this, do you
think that the project will ever get off the ground?

:-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

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