On 2008-02-21, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
In article ,
"DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2008-02-21, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
[ ... ]
And an even bigger basement. Actually, I could make use of a horizontal
mill. But won't get it. No space.
Actually -- there are small horizontal mills which you might get
into there -- but they are still heavy. An example is the Nichols
horizontal mill (which I have) which weighs in at about 1100 pounds.
Takes up about as much space as two floor-mount drill presses.
Same as the Millrite, in both weight and footprint.
O.K. I got the Nichols for only about $200.00 IIRC -- and with
the name match, how could I resist? :-)
[ ... ]
But the taper attachment sounds more useful.
There are two styles. The one I have, and the telescoping one
which does not require unclamping and reclamping lots of things to
switch over -- but introduces a little more slop through all the
linkages.
I think I'll be looking, but not immediately.
O.K.
One thing that did not
come with the 5914 was the headstock spindle sleeve, which allows MT3
dead centers to fit in the MT 4.5 female taper in the headstock spindle.
I did not get one either -- but I made one.
With the taper attachment?
Yes. The travel of the compound was not sufficient for turning
the taper needed -- let alone the difficulty of adjusting it to
sufficient precision. :-)
I'm also missing the slotted faceplate. Got the 3-jaw, 4-jaw, and
dog-driver chucks.
I got the slotted faceplate at a swap-meet/picnic held by the
local metalworking club for a quite reasonable price. I have two of the
dog drivers, one with a chip out of the outer edge, but I am going to
mill that open wider to handle the larger dogs.
I got one dog driver and no faceplate.
All of my faceplates and dog drivers were later acquisitions.
The lathe came to me with:
1 3-jaw chuck with two-piece jaws. (I think that I had to
make a key for it, too. :-)
1 Lever-style collet closer with nose adaptor and
protector for 2-1/4x8 spindle nose.
1 threading dial (in a drawer).
misc spare chuck jaws, which did not fit the chuck I got.
It would be even nicer if I had another lathe bed section onto
which to slide it -- then I would not have to worry about it being
knocked off and damaged. Just give a couple of inches of gap between
the ends of the real bed and the dummy one, and enough length to support
the whole of the turret.
Wouldn't a bridge crane be more useful?
Not without a place to mount it. I have a folding engine hoist,
which lives out in /dev/barn01 when I don't need it, because I don't
have enough floor space in the garage^H^H^H^H^H^Hshop.
I looked at portable bridge cranes, such as sold by HF, but my ceiling
is too low. Nor do I have a place to store an engine hoist, so I rent
one from Taylor Rentals when needed, for ~$45 per day. The rental unit
is far heavier than the $170 HF units.
The height problem is another point. The lathe is under a garage
door which bends in sections and stores above the lathe. :-)
[ ... ]
Is the Clausing heavy enough for negative rake tools to be worthwhile?
[ ... ]
Some of these days I'll try it with a true negative rake insert.
I only have a 1-1/2 HP motor, but that should be equivalent to your 2HP
one since I don't have to drive the vari-speed pulley, which eats
horsepower. :-)
It's something to try. I'm thinking that I should use inserts for
roughing and HSS for finishing (where needed) and one-off grooving jobs.
Well ... I usually use inserts both for roughing and (the ground
and honed ones for the Compact-5/CNC) for finishing. I save grinding
HSS for special form tools, and for things like Acme threading tools
which are just one or two sizes too big for the insert holder which I
have for threading tools. :-)
I'll be trying this.
O.K. It was helpful to have the surface grinder for making the
Acme tools with precisely the proper relief angles for the pitch and
diameter I needed to cut. Also a sine plate and a sine bar contributed
too.
Ahh ... well ... I don't think that the Reeves drive is _that_
inefficient.
Hmm ... Bridgeport, on the J-head went from 1 HP to 1-1/2 HP,
and then to 2 HP when they went from step pulleys to variable-speed
pulleys which are quite similar to what Clausing uses. And I've been
told that it was to keep the same horsepower into the spindle that they
increased the motor size.
The efficiency seems to be in the range 90% to 95%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission.
Bridgeport may have used the opportunity to solve an
underpowered-spindle problem. Also, people who buy step-pulley drives
over continuously variable speed drives are probably more cost
sensitive, so the smaller cheaper motor may come with cone pulleys,
while the larger more expensive motor comes with the reeves drive.
Possible -- but they did offer the 1.5 HP first with the
variable speed, and later the 2 HP, So they must have found 1.5 HP to
be insufficient.
[ ... ]
That would work, but the pin also works.
You have the hole for the pin. I don't, and don't want to risk
damaging the toolpost without a spare on hand. That toolpost really
feels hardened -- though I have not yet put it on the Rockwell hardness
tester.
I'd be surprised if it were not hardened, at least case hardened.
Agreed.
Enjoy,
DoN.
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