Anyone use this style toolpost and care to comment?

http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=B1883

I'm thinking about making one for my Compact 5. Looks easy enough
to make but I can't figure out how you can adjust the holder to
register
both higher or lower than the toolpost.

I'll want to take a closer look the next time I get to Busy Bee but
welcome any opinions.

Thanks,
DOC

On Aug 12, 9:35*am, doc wrote:
Anyone use this style toolpost and care to comment?

http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=B1883

I'm thinking about making one for my Compact 5. Looks easy enough
to make but I can't figure out how you can adjust the holder to
register
both higher or lower than the toolpost.

I'll want to take a closer look the next time I get to Busy Bee but
welcome any opinions.

Thanks,
DOC

With the things being THAT cheap, is it even worth firing up the
machinery? Anyway, the holder height is adjusted with that big
machine screw you see sticking up in the pic. Looks like a derivative
of one of the many do-it-yourself tool holders that have been in the
home machinists' mags for the last 50 years.

Stan

On 2009-08-12, doc wrote:
Anyone use this style toolpost and care to comment?

http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=B1883

I'm thinking about making one for my Compact 5. Looks easy enough
to make but I can't figure out how you can adjust the holder to
register
both higher or lower than the toolpost.

Higher or lower than the toolpost? That is a bit extreme.

The tool holder (to the left in the image at the web site you
pointed to) apparently has a male dovetail which is clamped in a female
one on the post by tightening the Allen head cap screw on the near face.

There are three screws to clamp the tool in the holder, and the
forth one which has the nut and the knurled collar below it is adjusted
to set how far the tool goes down before you clamp it in place.

However, I see another thing which I consider more of a negative
on this post. It has only *one* dovetail and clamp. There should be
two. One on the side as shown for normal turning, and another on the
face closest to the spindle axis and parallel to the axis to hold tools
for boring and facing. With that setup, you clamp the toolpost down
*once* with one face parallel to the chuck's face and the other parallel
to the axis and you can set tools for both functions without having to
re-position the toolpost for each change. The re-positioning loses the
relationship of the position information on your dials to the actual
tool point, so you can't quickly switch tools back and forth if you need
to do some turning and some facing or boring in the same workpiece.

I like the rocking on the hardened pin for clamping, but that
gets in the way of the other possible tool station.

For the Compact-5 (at least the CNC version which I have) there
is a Dickson style toolpost with the proper two tool stations. Here is
an example of a larger Dickson style toopost on a larger lathe:

http://www.stallard-engineering.co.uk/Engineering/dicksonquickchangetoolpost.htm

(beware folding URLs -- that one is a bit long.)

The one shown actually has three stations, and is not properly
mounted on the lathe. It has three stations, and the one which is
occupied should be the one parallel to the lathe spindle's axis, with
the one facing out actually facing to the left, and the one facing in
actually facing to the left so you can mount tools for working close to
a live center in the tailstock as well.

One of the two station ones came with my Compact-5, and was
marked as being Emco -- but it looks very much like one made by Dickson,
just smaller.

I just checked, and there does not appear to be one on eBay at
the moment.

Note that there were two styles used on the Compact-5/CNC. One
is the Dickson style, and the other is an asymmetrical style (the T-slot
for clamping the holder to the post is offset, so you can't exchange
tool holders between the turning and the boring/facing stations.

I'll want to take a closer look the next time I get to Busy Bee but
welcome any opinions.

Bear in mind the lack of the second station to minimize having
to re-locate the toolpost in mid-project.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Aug 12, 7:26*pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2009-08-12, doc wrote:


Ah... Here we go again. YAFP. (Yet another freaking project! :-))

After thinking about what Don had to say and checking out measurements
and such,
it looks like I'm going to have to make one that fits.

I really like the Dicksons. Got one that I use on a 12" lathe and a
knockoff
that I use on a 9.

But I don't think I will be able to find anything small enough to fit
on my C5.

There's a list of sizes he
http://www.lathes.co.uk/latheparts/page13.html

The smallest, S.00, looks to be almost 1-1/2 times too big.

So....


Thanks for the help everyone. And thanks for loading me up with
YAFP Don! :-)

DOC

On 2009-08-16, doc wrote:
On Aug 12, 7:26*pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2009-08-12, doc wrote:


Ah... Here we go again. YAFP. (Yet another freaking project! :-))

After thinking about what Don had to say and checking out measurements
and such,
it looks like I'm going to have to make one that fits.

I really like the Dicksons. Got one that I use on a 12" lathe and a
knockoff
that I use on a 9.

But I don't think I will be able to find anything small enough to fit
on my C5.

There's a list of sizes he
http://www.lathes.co.uk/latheparts/page13.html

The smallest, S.00, looks to be almost 1-1/2 times too big.

Actually -- the S.00 is very close to the size of the EMCO
marked one on my Compact-5/CNC. I measure 57 mm L x 40 mm A dimensions,
bearing in mind that mine has only two stations (turning and
boring/facing) not the third right-hand facing one for turning at the
tailstock end of the workpiece. And, that is on stop of an extra steel
plate on top of the cross slide which is probably something like 12mm
thick. (I did not remember to measure it when I was down in the shop
taking quick measurements.

Note that the Emco design uses Allen head cap screws to lick in
the tool shanks, instead of the square heads shown in the photo at the
top of your URL.

So -- I think that the chances are that the S.00 size may well
work for you -- if you can't find a set with the EMCO marking on eBay or
somewhere else.

Enjoy,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---