On Fri, 6 Jan 2017 13:06:54 -0700, "Bob La Londe"
wrote:

So, for a manual lathe who has found a tailpost turret to be really useful?

I know for some folks it would be useless. On the lathe I am thinking baout
getting one for I mostly use one single tool 90% of the time to radius pins.
I still have a QCTP on it, because its easier to set tools at the right
height, and when I do change tools it seconds. Not even tens of seconds.

I recently setup a job where I had to make several parts where I had to use
4 tools in the tail post. It was no big deal for one part, but for several
I started to begrudge the time spent changing tools. I think with as few as
half dozen parts the time setting up a turret for the job would have been
less than the time spent changing tools.

The ones available are pretty inexpensive as tools go, but I still hate to
throw money at stuff without having a commensurate time savings.

I still consider myself a hobby machinist, but as of the first of the year
the mold making business is my main business. This is a type of pin I can
see myself having to make a few times per year. Not always the same, but
similar. I could probably set up the turret for it leaving one hole open,
and do all of this type of job I am likely to do with the same set of tools
preloaded in the turret. I could probably break even on it in two years at
my current rate of this type of job. On the other hand, I might wind up
doing more of them now that its my main job.

I've read some forums, and watched a few videos. A few guys really love
them, but a lot of folks seem to think its a tool that would mostly be tool
drawer candy.

I am still in the process (its been a couple years now) of setting up my
smallest lathe for CNC, and ultimately this type of job would be done with a
gang tooling setup on it. On the flip side, I think the turret would speed
up this type of job instantly. I could even make lots of tool holders for
it so setting up for a different job would be fairly quick.








Greetings Bob,
I used to work at a place that had a tailstock turret. I trhough it
would be pretty neat for center drilling, drilling, and then reaming.
But not so much. This is because it takes a long time to move the
tailstock or the tailstock quill. So I instead put the little turret
into a QC holder made for holding cylindrical tools like a boring bar.
I usually have my tool posts set parallel to the Z axis on the lathe
so all I had to do was go the the right setting on the lathe
crossslide dial and drill away. Using the turret with the QC toolpost
made it very useful.
Eric