On 2017-01-06, Jon Elson wrote:
Bob La Londe wrote:

So, for a manual lathe who has found a tailpost turret to be really
useful?
I'd rather get a few more holders for the QC dovetail toolpost and forget
the tailstock. About the only cutting tool a tailpost is good for is really
heavy drilling. Otherwise, you can do it all on the toolpost. A DRO (or
CNC) helps in that matter for keeping track of the X position for each tool.

Depends on what you are doing, of course. I've a project which
I used to make in quantities which required turning do a diameter,
center drilling, drilling a tap diameter hole, tapping the hole, and
threading the reduced diameter part. All of these were done in the bed
turret -- leaing the cross-feed and toolpost mostly for parting off, and
a touch of a file to bevel certain spots on the product while the other
tools were doing their thing. The turning to diameter was done with a
roller box tool. TH eOD threading with a Geometric die head, the
tapping with a releasing tap holder, and the center drill was fitted
inside the work stop (a flick of a lever to advance or retract it), so it
was all pretty much automated. But it really helped that there were
individual feed stops for each station on the turret, which the
tailstock turrets don't have.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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