Many retired people subscribing to this groups have worked all their live
in
industries and have great knowledge and practical experience about machine
design.
Having said that I wonder what would be the cost of materiel to build a
prototype resembling the Oneway lathe?


I've done some machine design work in the past and when I first saw the
price on th Oneway, I wondered just that, so here goes...

Not counting the motor/drive...because I don't know exactly what the oneway
has...and you know someone with a fabricating shop that won't rape you,
since this is gonna be a one-off thing...

Material is going to set you back about $350usd for the bed/ways/leg
assembly. Steel in question is 3/16" (for the bed tube) and 1/4" (for the
legs and braces) steel plate, nothing fancy, just hot or cold rolled steel
and a couple of bars of 5/8"x3 ground steel bar for the ways.

A fabricating shop is going to charge you about $100 to $200 or so(plus
coffee and donuts or maybe a case or two of beer) for the cutting, bending
and rolling. These are ballpark prices that a fab shop in southern Wisconsin
gave me about this exact project a year ago. The guy that runs the shop owes
me a favor or two, but not enough to cut his price too much. And I'd have
had ALL the engineering done already and would have been sweating right
along side him while doing the work.

The spindle is going to cost you about $100 to make on the cheap or $250 to
do it right and the tailstock is going to cost about $150.

So all told, I'd guess you're looking at about $1100 plus the cost of the
motor/drive.

For the drives, a step pulley set-up is gonna run you about $100 for a 6
speed and about $250 for a Reeves VS set-up and a 2 hp motor should go for
about $150-$175 which brings the grand total up to biting the hell out of
$1600.

These numbers are not just pulled out of my a$$, but they are NOT to be
taken as a firm quote, either...call them educated guesses that should be
pretty close.

Luck

Mike