Elevating boring table for lathe cross slide.

Often enough I use my lathe like a horizontal boring machine. I have a swiveling table I mount to the cross slide, and the piece part is bolted to it

The problem is getting the part set to the correct height. I mess about with shims and spacers, but its a painful and time consuming procedure.

Does anyone know about an elevating boring table that I could mount to my cross slide, secure the piece part to, and then quickly adjust for the correct height?

Such a device would be a real solution to this problem.

A miiling slide?

Edited By Gavlar on 06/12/2022 21:45:36

Edited By Gavlar on 06/12/2022 21:46:21

I use a vertical slide set parallel to the lathe axis.

Found a reference to an elevating boring table design by Woodson published in PM sometime in 1941. As the reference is Americentric I presume PM refers to Popular Mechanics magazine.

Popular Mechanics can be found for free download in pdf format and on Google books. Depending on your patience and Google-Fu it should be findable.

Clive

There was a design in ME (or MEW?) where the work was mounted on a hinged work table and the work height adjusted by changing the table's angle. Sorry cannot recall the detail at the moment. But the slide sounds the easiest route if you have a rigid one.

Just a personal preference but I've never been keen on the all swinging and singing Myford type slides. I have a heavy Chinese one which is very solid but it only mounts face-on or parallel to the axis which is all I need.

Regards,

IanT

I guess it depends on how much headroom you need and the centre height of your lathe.
I have one of these, which might do the job if you have sufficient space; I've not tried it for that purpose though..
https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Workholding/Work-Tables/Angled-Work-Table

Bill

Arranging calibrated pure vertical rise and fall from below, rather than via an off set slide running in dovetails, without inducing tilt errors is tricky. Several styles of lab jacks are made that might, potentially, work for you and could be taken as design inspiration.

Commercial double parallelogram style platform lab jacks are generally specified for better than 10 thou per foot tilt. Typically being rather better. Impossibly expensive though. I'd expect a carefully constructed home made version with solid, hing style, pivots running straight across rather than the common commercial 4 arms each end style to do rather better. Lots of work to make.

For small work a large diameter mating pair of threaded cylinders in the centre can work well but getting at things to adjust can be tricky and preventing rotation when screwing up or down needs accurate guides. Travel is inherently limited. Way down the "lab jacks I like to use" list.

A micrometer driven sliding wedge device can give you perhaps 1/2 " / 10 mm of accurate shake and tilt free travel. Inherently bulky, at least 2 inch cube compressed, and more careful work than you might expect to make it. But it is accurate and stable. The lab jacks made in this style by MicroControle were essentially tilt free to interferometric standards. Seriously expensive, hundreds of £ back in the early 1980's.

Objectively lifting from below isn't a practical proposition.

Clive

Referenced in HMEM forums as well

PM Boring table

PM archive here - looked at all 12 -1941 issues and did not find the table....Fun reading though, although PM seemed to be rather War oriented back then...

PM Archive

Maybe MichaelG will find it for us - I am also interested.

I presume post #16 here : **LINK**

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/lathe-boring-tables.1282/

to be the starting-point for that quest

[ and I haven’t even had coffee yet ]

MichaelG.

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EDIT : may I have breakfast now, please ?
 

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11358918/boring-and-milling-table-home-model-engine-machinist

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 07/12/2022 07:08:32

The problem with any elevating table is it will rapidly eat up the height between cross slide and lathe ctr line so you won't get the work in.

Packing and shimming should not be long an painfull. Establish the exact ctr height of your spindle above the cross slide. Then it's just a bit of maths to work out how high any packing needs to be, so make that up with parallels finally tuned with a couple of feeler gauges.

Clamp the work to the cross slide rather than loose rigidity using a vertical slide and you can usually mount larger work to cross slide that than you could a vertical slide.

Edited By JasonB on 07/12/2022 07:31:37

See my previous post:

Hard copy of magazine is on ebay: **LINK**

https://www.ebay.com/itm/194432948884

Listing includes a photo of the contents page.

Q.E.D.

MichaelG.

The myford that the OP has already has the "starting point" as it has a slotted cross slide which is what that thread was about.

If you put say a 1" thick sub-table onto the Myford and then add some way to elevate it and a way to bolt it to the existiing cross slide you sill soon run out of usable height.

.

True … but it’s not what the Woodson article was about

MichaelG.

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Edited By Michael Gilligan on 07/12/2022 07:36:19

This will do all you require

http://www.lathes.co.uk/stepperhead/

Alan

Edited By Alan Jackson on 07/12/2022 10:09:36

Agree with Jason that packing and shimming for a "one set-up" job needn't be a major pain.

If thats the way you need to work best to get yourself properly organised with a drilled and tapped sub table and a nice stack of calibrated spacers and shims so you can easily build up to the right height. The packs of colour coded plastic shim sheets are great for the final, fine setting, bit.

Most of us have a blind spot when it comes to getting organised at the shimming and packing side of things. We'd far rather do the sort'n swear search though all the odd bit trying to find something that will work rather than spend time equivalent to a couple or three search settings figuring out what a comprehensive set covering everything needs to be. Then finding what you have before buying what you need. Not forgetting a box to keep it in with a nice label describing the contents along with the will-power not to use the bits for something else!

Straight from the "Do as I say, Not do as I do." handbook. I don't want to consider how much valuable hobby time I've wasted over the years on such search missions. Probably months. But have I learned. Nope!

Much harder if you have to adjust the height without disturbing settings. I imagine a sub-table with four stout pillars beneath running in sufficiently long close fitting guides so it can be slid up and down without loosing registration could be engineered. Either rough lift (screws) and change shims before clamping back down or a pair of micrometer driven sliding wedges. Possible, almost certainly inelegant and will consume more space than you'd like. Considerable work too as it has to be right. I suspect plain wedges would bind, MicroControle used needle rollers between the wedges on their optical lab device. One reason for the heart attack price.

Big thank you to Micheal for finding that elevating table design.

Clive

What's wrong with using a Myford vertical milling slide? It is designed for doing exactly what you want to do. You can measure the elevation to the nearest thou with a turn of the handle and its graduated collar.

Get the fixed vertical slide, as it is much more rigid than the double-swivel type. The fixed slide can be pivoted in one direction by the way you mount it on the cross slide so there is still that versatility.

You can clamp the job directly to the T slots on the vertical slide, or hold small jobs in the Myford vice made for the job.

Edited By Hopper on 07/12/2022 12:18:22

Edited By Hopper on 07/12/2022 12:24:23

.

Not knowing exactly what Dennis wants to do … I can’t presume to answer on his behalf

[quote] Does anyone know about an elevating boring table that I could mount to my cross slide, secure the piece part to, and then quickly adjust for the correct height? [/quote]

But Mr Woodson’s device [even scaled-down] would perhaps handle bigger workpieces than the Myford vertical slide.

MichaelG.

Thank you all for your replies.

My lathe is a 6" CL height (12" swing) Atlas Craftsman. My T slotted cross slide is home made, measures 4" wide X 12" long, surface ground to .900" thick, made from 1020 Hrs. It really works a treat. I've been using it almost daily for at least 30 years.

The operation I am doing is boring and tapping the side of a pump housing for either 1/2 or 3/4" pipe threads. I have an Atlas vertical slide and a home made 4 X 7" boring table for it, but using a vertical slide for this operation won't work; no surface to mount that is 90* to my tapped hole, and more importantly, not enough rigidity.

I scrolled through the posts, and haven't yet found the Woodson article in Popular Science magazine. I am sure with more effort I will find it.

So far, I think the tilting angle plate will be the best solution, unless the Woodson article has ideas I haven't considered.

Thanks again to all who replied.

The link I provided has viewable pages of the entire article

… no need to register or sign-in

MichaelG.

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Once more … 

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11358918/boring-and-milling-table-home-model-engine-machinist

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 07/12/2022 21:10:39

The four screen-shots that I have just taken on the iPad would be plenty good enough to work from.

MichaelG.