"David Billington" wrote in message
...
Ignoramus14738 wrote:
I was just wondering if anyone who has a lathe capable of using a
quick change toolpost like Aloris, would still have any reason to ever
need a lantern toolpost.
My feeling on this matter, without knowing too much, is that lantern
toolposts are obsolete and quick change is the way to go, and there is
never a reason to use these old style tools.

Would there be anyone who disagrees with this.

i

I've been machining stuff, mostly as an amateur, since about 1977-1978
when I did metal shop in junior high when I was 12- 13 and have only used
lantern tool posts in the US. Been living in the UK since 1982 and the
lantern types always seemed a PITA and have never needed one for anything
I've done in the last 28 years. Apart from indexing 4 way toolposts that
needed shimming I've almost always used Dickson type toolposts in the UK
or IIRC the Swiss type fitted to some UK Hardinges which have a similar
height adjustment. Both my current lathes have Dickson or Bison knock off
toolposts.

The main odd ball toolpost attachment I've run across was a local
machinist that had a Bridgeport M head fitted to the cross-slide of his
lathe. He had the head and had a requirement for a helical passage on a
hydraulic heat exchanger. The heat exchanger comprised a heavy wall tube
with one fluid flowing down the centre and another in the helical outer
passage, it had a shaeth. He used a lathe about 20" - 24" IIRC and mounted
the Bridgeport M head on the carriage and then did thread cutting as
normal, with a very coarse pitch, but with a milling head doing the
cutting. Impressive and worked a treat.

When I was involved with a machine shop, back in '73 - '78, we mounted a
Bridgeport J head, vertically, onto the bed of our Sheldon 1710H NC lathe.
We rigged a table on the cross-slide and used it to mill batches of parts,
24 in a setup, IIRC, under control of the Bendix 5 NC. Programming was an
interesting trick. g But it worked very well, and I wrote an article about
it for _NC Shopowner_ magazine.

We couldn't afford a CNC mill yet. That came a couple of years later.

--
Ed Huntress