Lathe cross slide travel question

I’m looking at a precision matthew’s PM-1022V and it lists a 10” swing over ways, 5.5” swing over cross slide, 5” cross slide travel. This will be perfect for 99% of what I want to make.

However, one of the larger things I’ll need to turn are 7” driving wheels for a steam loco. I think I could get away with using a boring bar type of tool to reach the outside diameter without having the workpiece over the cross slide, but I’m trying to figure out now if the cross slide travel will be a limiting factor. Theoretically, 5” travel gives me ability to turn 10” diameter but this will be my first lathe and so I don’t know where the travel starts. To put another way, will a cross slide with 5” travel have that travel on equal parts of center, or is that adjustable?

If you have the tool post shown, you can turn it 90deg and reach the outside of your 10". It's how I do 10" dia wheels on my 10" lathe.

Therefore 7" will be easy.

Hi Alexander,

The PM-1022V looks similar to the Warco WM250 so you should be able to mount the topslide at either end of the cross slide or in the middle etc. so turning large diameter work (7" ) should be possible. You may have to use a boring bar type of tool but that has not caused any problem on my smaller lathe. Some have even made a new cross slide for their lathe.

Thor

Edited By Thor 🇳🇴 on 04/07/2022 14:33:42

The cross slide determines the total travel, but where that travel is relative to the work is not well defined, and in practise is set mainly by the position of the tool. You may well have to swap between a LH boring bar for the rim and a RH boring bar and normal knife tool for the centre boss and bore. That is what I had to do on my 16" flywheel on a 13" swing lathe (18" swing in the gap) with a cross slide travel of 7.5":

Andrew

Providing you can run your lathe in reverse, you can also use a RH boring bar mounted upside down. Power feed will also work if you can reverse the leadscrew. It worked for me making the wheels and the flywheel for the Myfordboy Traction Engine on my Warco WM250.

Just remember to change back to forward speed when conventional turning. It caught me out a few times.

Thanks for all the great information everyone. Wonderful forum.

Your lathe dimensions seem fairly similar to my 10" swing Boxford. I've machined loco. wheels 9" dia. across the flanges with no real problem apart for the need for a little ingenuity with the tool positioning. What you do need is a low spindle speed with good torque. You will really appreciate power cross-feed for this type of work.