On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:10:26 GMT, Jaggy Taggy wrote:

On my recently acquired Reed & Prentice lathe is an old style tool holder
(lamp post style??) which really sucks.

But the alternative, get a modern stable setup, is a bewildering task. There
are many styles and a large swing in prices.
My lathe is a 12" and I could spend anywhere from about $100+ (Enco, piston
style) to a small fortune for a KDK holder and what I really need to get is
an education in the differences.

Can anybody here help me with this??

Regards Uwe

PS. I do not do production work, rather slow poke experimental tasks.


If you have access to a vertical slide for the lathe or a milling machine or
shaper you may like to build your own. I've recently built a Stevenson
toolpost:-
http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/to.../toolpost.html

and find it to be very good. One advantage of it is that you can scale it to
fit your lathe. I made mine to fit my 7" swing Myford But I've visited John
Stevenson and seen him using one on a 14" swing TOS lathe.

Mark Rand
RTFM