Tailstock turret

The next stage was to make a mandrel to mount the rotating casting on to machine the reverse side. This was made from a chunk of 1 1/4" b.m.s. which when this duty is finished will be modified to become the securing bolt that holds the two castings together.

As I had turned the mandrel to be a very close fit in the bore of the casting i was more then pleased when I could not detect any runout of the casting when it was reversed to finish the machining.

Next will be the drilling of the detent holes on the rotary table.

Phil

Here you can see the rotating casting mounted on the rotary table on the drilling machine to have the six detent holes drilled. If anyone is wondering, the cords each side of the drill column is my crude method of counterbalancing the weight of the drill table. Its something that I rigged up in a hurry probably 30 + years ago and have never got round to improving but as they say "if it ain't broke don't fix it ". As you can probably imagine the drill table, rotary table and the casting being drilled all cast iron is quite a weighty lump to manoeuvre around, so I was quite glad of the counterbalance no matter what it looks like.

Having finished the turret a few days ago I've realised that I've not been keeping this thread up to date, so to continue.

I assembled the turret and mounted it in the tailstock and utilising the spring detent l was then able to rotate the front casting to pilot drill the six holes required for the tool holders.

Having opened these holes up to 3/8" reaming size l discovered that my only machine reamer of that size was blunt on the tip, for a hole only 5/8" deep a sharp one was paramount, so I had to wait a few days whilst a new one was ordered. Note to self - check these things beforehand!

The final machining operation on the casting was to drill the six holes on the periphery for the locking screws that will retain the various adapters and toolholders. This was done with my rotary table mounted vertically on the drilling machine.

Having tapped the locking screws holes, the turret was then reassembled and fitted with some of the adapters/ tool holders that I'd previously made for the final photo.

Having spent all this time making this turret l really wonder how much use it's going to get, but that aside it has been a very interesting exercise although I'm not impressed by how much time I've had to spend since in stripping and cleaning the lathe to remove all the cast iron dust.

Phil

It's looking good Phil!

Congratulations on completing your turret!

J A Radford considered making one but was deterred by the likely problem of tooling fouling other parts of the lathe. His solution was the quick change holders shown in his book.

Will you report in due course on how far, if at all, this is an issue for you?