"David Billington" wrote in message
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Ed Huntress wrote:
"David Billington" wrote in message
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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.
Shame you don't, or haven't, posted pictures, that would be interesting to
see.
I don't post pictures because I don't have many that are interesting. Also,
I've never done it, and don't want to learn how. g
The NC Shopowner article didn't make it through my Great Purge of a couple
of years ago, I'm afraid. However, I have some snapshots of the setup that I
took at the time, when I was thinking about writing an article, which show
how the head was mounted (it was on the tailstock, not the bed -- memory is
failing me), and a bit of the milling operation. If you're interested, send
me an e-mail with your address and you can take a look at them -- or post a
couple, if you're so inclined.
Remove the "3" for my real e-mail address:
--
Ed Huntress
This chap, it was his shop, unfortunately had a bit of a distrust of
things electrickery and had no DROs on any tools, he had a couple of mills
that would have benefited from them. When he was attending one of my
neighbours party, old friends from Stottert & Pitt, he popped round to
check out the Sony DRO reading on my BP against the dials, spot on, but he
had a distrust, a real shame.He was claimed prematurely by cancer. He
specialised in spline cutting, keyways, gears. He ran a number of Fellows
gear shapers. His only foray into CNC that I'm aware of was the
acquisition of an old CNC Beaver mill with Fanuc control and 4th axis that
was used to do an order for prime number master gears. I think he knew
his stuff but in that case he was hoping for help from his computer
literate son that helped but didn't want to take on the business.