This was triggered by putting together a Harbor Freight "radial
arms saw kit", intended for mounting a hand held circular saw
to it (an accident looking for a victim?). A friend bought it on
a whim, decided it wasn't what he expected and gave it to me
"because you do woodworking YOU might find a use for this.".

You've got a pair of parallel horizontal rods with a carriage
tht can ride back and forth on them. The support for the
two parallel horizontal rods slides up and down on a 1" diameter
rod attached to a metal base and has a threaded nut in
front of that for a 3/4" threaded rod with a handle on top
and a pair of metal fingers in a slot near the bottom. The
metal fingers are bolted on the other end into a curved slot
in the metal base.

++
++======== crank for raising and lowering carriage assembly
+ + =
| | = -- carriage ----
+---------+ +--------+ ++
+| +--------| |------------------| |
+| +--------| |------------------| |
+---------+ +---------+ ++
| | =
| | =
| | =
| | =
+-------------+
+-------------+

So I'm thinking - "If I mount a small router on the carriage
and mount this puppy so the router can travel along the
long axis of the lathe . . ."

SO - now I can machine grooves into a piece, or maybe use
it, with some adapting, to turn spiral grooves into a piece
on the lathe. THAT's when my question came up. I'd be
"machining" grooves, spirals and who knows what else
into a piece I'd turned. I mean hell, the SuperNova2 and
it's kin has indexing holes in the back already - a machinist
feature. And there are "duplicating" attachements for
most wood lathes. Make a pattern, crank a handle and
you've got a copy - sort of.

So where is that illusive line between wood turning - and
machining?

charlie b