My lathe

This is my lathe.

Branded ‘Impala’, it is actually an Optimum Maschinen, a German manufacturer operating out of China. This is my fifth lathe, I bought my first, 9x20, back in the early 90s.

I’ve made a few mods and bits and pieces for it. It came with the usual sheet metal cabinet which I didn’t like, so, I made another, the stand is in two sections and features an inbuilt bed trueing system and coolant system.

The bottom section is made of 2” round, heavy wall tubing, it has two shelves, a metrology drawer and a small shelf above for small item storage, chuck Jaws, etc. The bottom shelf is for small stock, the upper shelf for chucks, change gears, traveling steadies, etc. On the back wall of the cabinet is a 12 volt, centrifugal coolant pump, the coolant container is mounted on the right hand side.

The pump is gravity fed coolant from the tank and pumps it up through a 12mm tube, then on to a 25mm tube running under the swarf tray then back to the coolant tank. It’s a closed looping system which also aerates the coolant, so, doesn’t smell and there is very little wastage. I think I’ve changed the coolant about 4-5 timess in the 10 years the system has been working.

There are two drains in the swarf tray which dump coolant into the 25mm tube. Between the 25mm tube and the pump is a take off which delivers coolant to two flexible nozzles, one on the cross slide, the other mounted to the rear splash guard. Each nozzle has a small tap to vary coolant flow and there is a larger tap between the take off and the 25 mm tube for pressure control to the take off..

Edited By Tony sacc on 18/08/2023 00:13:33

Edited By Tony sacc on 18/08/2023 00:14:59

The top section of the stand is made from heavy angle iron in an H pattern. There are fine thread bolts welded underneath on each corner, these locate in holes drilled into a flat plate on the top of the lower cabinet and have nut with which to adjust the bed. It is accurate to within 0.02mm over the length of the bed and takes about 10 minutes to true the bed.

The drive is via two belts, one belt for the three lower speeds, the other for the three upper speeds. It has an idler mounted on an arm for adjusting belt tension, however, an Allen key was required to loosen the idler for belt changes which proved too slow, so, I made a spring loaded arm which supplies the tension. To change belts, simply pull the lever, change the belt and let the lever go.

I’ve also added a tray on the tailstock and another on the headstock for storage of tool shims and what not.

I made a canvas bed protector which sits beneath the chuck and is connected to the carriage. The canvas is rolled around a PVC tube riding in bearings. Also rolled around the PVC is a length of cord which is routed over a couple of pulleys to a weight contained within a PVC tube supplying tension for the canvas bed protector.

I make accessories for the lathe, rather than buy them, so far a scissor knurler, a ball turner, some tool holders and a few tangential tool holders.

Edited By Tony sacc on 18/08/2023 00:22:35

Moderator Edit: rotated photos.

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 18/08/2023 12:39:10

There is something seriously wrong with the picture uploading on this forum. It refuses to allow pictures in sequential order, loads some sideways, and yet others upside down???

Photos are displayed in their native orientation (like in a film or standard digital camera in landscape mode held normally) In modern smart cameras and mobile phones, information of the orientation of the camera is also stored in the image file and smart viewing software will display the image the way it was taken.

If your photo was taken vertically or upside down, it has to be rotated first to the native orientation before uploading.

I normally insert each photo separately to get them in the correct order. Or use editing software to combine several photos into one for uploading.

Photos are inserted where the cursor is when the camera icon is selected. Just make sure the cursor is in the correct place each time you want to insert a picture. I usually press the return key a few (3) times to make spaces between two sections of text and photos then position the cursor between the two sections of text where I want the photo. This also ensures text starts on a new line not to the right of the picture. Often I do all the text first and add photos last.

Martin C

Nice ideas. Shallow pullout trays should be more common.

We can actually see that some pictures posted above were uploaded upside down and sideways on your album Tony

Edited By vic newey on 18/08/2023 09:56:29

They're right side up on my camera and on my computer where I downloaded, them. As soon as 8.uploato the four, a couple went upside down. Pewter gremlins!

Edited By Tony sacc on 18/08/2023 11:11:34

Unfortunately the forum software doesn't allow ordinary members to rotate their own photos. Only a moderator can do it, and only to copies of photos in posts. not to originals in an album.

The restriction is probably because twirling photos is slightly dangerous - sometimes it upsets other formatting as well, which can be hard work to disentangle. I rotate pictures whenever I see them unless pressed for time and can't afford to spend 10 minutes sorting out a mess in the unlikely event it goes wrong.

Root cause is digital cameras have several ways of deciding which way is up, and these are recorded in each photos metadata. Display software sometimes chooses inappropriate metadata and renders the image wrongly. The forum and my Canon camera always get it right, whilst the forum and my Sony get about 10% of photos wrong. I don't know why.

The only sure fire way of guaranteeing orientation is to manually edit images with a photo editor. A human saying 'this way up' must have priority over other methods.

It's a pain. Work is in hand to replace the forum software; fingers crossed the new forum will always get images right, and allow ordinary members to rotate their own photos.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 18/08/2023 13:03:42

This isn't the only forum that uploads photos upside down and so,on. A few will orient photos sideways if the picture format is portrait, others will do so if the format is panorama..

This isn't the only forum that uploads photos upside down and so,on. A few will orient photos sideways if the picture format is portrait, others will do so if the format is panorama..