On 2017-01-08, Bob La Londe wrote:
wrote in message ...

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.

And -- it gave you a power feed, assuming that your lathe had
feed gearing in addtion to threading half-nuts. (And a quick-change
gearbox, of course.)

Eric

**************

Eric, This is a very good insight. I'll try it the way it is intended, and
then I'll consider options for QC mounting and quick alignment.

One other is the lever feed modification for the tailstock ram.
Make a screw which fits into the leadscrew threads in the ram, mill a
slot in the end, a link from that to the lever, another link from the
far end of the lever to the side of the tailstock (allowing for
approximate centering of the feed forces), and a cushion grip on the end
of the lever and you have quick feeds similar to a drill press. (For
that matter -- make the modified leadscrew into the ram connect to a
rack gear, and add a pinion gear with four handles (three is too few for
convenient transfer of hands when you need to apply significant force.)

Since I have the bed turret, it has the rack and pinion feed,
and is big enough to drive 1" shank tools, instead of the 5/8" ones
common in the tailstock turrets. The real trick, however, would be
to come up with some form of individual stops selected by rotating the
turret.

Good Luck,
DoN.
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