Custom cross slide

Evening All,

I have access to an old but serviceable ZZM Sofia C8m lathe but no milling facility. I am looking for a cross slide with T slots. Either one already available or even a custom made one, as long as it is within reason pricewise.

I have sketches with sizes if that would help with sourcing or pricing for a custom job.

Any help gratefully received,

TIA,

Ben

Ben There have been milling slides advertised under the For Sale column

Roy

Ben

T slotted cross slides appear very regularly on EBay - mostly for Myfords of various flavours, but also other lathes. You will probably find it cheaper to explore that route rather than getting a custom slide made. You will need to try and get some dimensions for other lathes to compare to your machine though. An alternative that might work could be to make a "sub-table" or milling table to fit onto your existing cross slide. The easiest way to fit the table to your machine would probably be by drilling and tapping some suitable mounting holes in your cross slide to hold the sub-table, or if you don't want to drill, could you clamp a sub-table to your slide. The sub-table could be made from steel or aluminium plate with either built up T slots or holes drilled and tapped to suit the job that you want to hold. An advantage of the sub-table route is that it could be made by hand rather than machining and you could make tables with different hole/slot patterns to suit individual jobs.

Just some thoughts on other possibilities.

Keith

Ben,

It might help if you were to post your sketches with measurements on an album on this website. Then you could put them in a post.

Give us all a better idea of what is required, as I suspect few of us can imagine the lathe you mention.

Assume from the name that it is made in Bulgaria.

Phil

Edited By Robbo on 20/03/2014 13:52:28

Thanks for the replies/suggestions. I'll draw up the dims I've got, all nice and neat.

It is a Bulgarian lathe, approx. 12x20, original equipment for the vessel, so around 40 year old but still all good!

The sub-table idea might be worth persuing...

With a 12" swing you've probably got plenty of room for a sub-table. I was thinking of Myford sized, but probably a bit small for your lathe, unless you bolt the whole Myford cross-slide on top of your cross-slide.

Phil

Ben,

If you are happy with the idea of a sub-table; have a look at the C6 item on this page from Arc ... it looks very adaptable.

MichaelG.

Thank you all for the ideas and pointers. I am continuing to look and gather information

You could fabricate one using the techniques proposed by Martin Cleeve many moons ago. I made a tee-slot cross-slide for my mini-lathe using this technique,see:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/tee-slot-cross-slide.html

Mike

T slots are never where you want them Just yesterday I was debating whether to bolt down a plain plate over my T-slots to more easily mount a rear tool post.

That's a very good question Michael!

Which is best for general purposes - T slots along the length or cross wise ?

That's a very good question Michael!

A good argument for going down the sub-table route, you can have both or a mixture using different sub-tables.

Keith

.

Well-said, Keith.

MichaelG.

Photo lower front right shows a custom made milling cross slide for a Myford S7 with T slots both ways.

I wonder if you managed to fine a Tee slotted cross slide you could try John Ward on No 01282-869262 he has a web page at WWW.latheparts.co.uk he has made replacement parts and accessories for old and obsolete lathes and millers for years at reasonable prices he also makes most types of gears and accessories for laths and mills as well.(not a advert just a satified customer).

I support the last post for John Ward. I bought a slotted crsoss-slide from him some years ago and it was very well made and half the price of another well known firm.

Chew one out from a lump of cast iron

Neil