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I discovered a while back that Paul had a lathe similar to mine, and had made some accessories and improvements to it. Naturally I ripped off his excellent ideas. Unfortunately my version is not nearly as skillful nor as pretty as his, but it certainly works well!
First was his milling table for the South Bend 9" lathe. How my lathe normally looks:
...And with the compound/top slide removed. I had long since decided that the milling attachment for these lathes is just no good, and all milling should be done directly on the cross slide for reasons of rigidity:
It removes easily enough, just a couple of set screws and lift it up. This gives a nice large flat spot to mount things like this:
All holes are drilled and tapped thru, 5/16-18. The slab of steel is an offcut from a 10" wide flange beam, about 5/8 thick. Table measures 4-1/2 X 9". I figured it all so that the spindle has almost full coverage of the table. It fastens with its own dovetail plug, just like the factory compound/top slide:
All work was done on the lathe itself. The larger countersinks are for clearance, to clear the top of the cross slide nut. The dovetail plug simply screws into any of the table holes, it's drilled and tapped the same. I suppose I should pin it too, to prevent twisting the table out of line.
Thanks, Paul!
I bought a 3 foot chunk of 5/16-18 threaded rod, and a dozen flanged nuts at the local Ace hardware for $10. Worlds cheapest clamping kit. So far, that's all this has cost me, besides a couple hrs time.
He also has a fly cutter for the south bend, in which the tool path circumference is equal to one foot. It makes the SFM calculations particularly easy. I may have to wait till I have a threading dial to try that one.
First was his milling table for the South Bend 9" lathe. How my lathe normally looks:
...And with the compound/top slide removed. I had long since decided that the milling attachment for these lathes is just no good, and all milling should be done directly on the cross slide for reasons of rigidity:
It removes easily enough, just a couple of set screws and lift it up. This gives a nice large flat spot to mount things like this:
All holes are drilled and tapped thru, 5/16-18. The slab of steel is an offcut from a 10" wide flange beam, about 5/8 thick. Table measures 4-1/2 X 9". I figured it all so that the spindle has almost full coverage of the table. It fastens with its own dovetail plug, just like the factory compound/top slide:
All work was done on the lathe itself. The larger countersinks are for clearance, to clear the top of the cross slide nut. The dovetail plug simply screws into any of the table holes, it's drilled and tapped the same. I suppose I should pin it too, to prevent twisting the table out of line.
Thanks, Paul!
I bought a 3 foot chunk of 5/16-18 threaded rod, and a dozen flanged nuts at the local Ace hardware for $10. Worlds cheapest clamping kit. So far, that's all this has cost me, besides a couple hrs time.He also has a fly cutter for the south bend, in which the tool path circumference is equal to one foot. It makes the SFM calculations particularly easy. I may have to wait till I have a threading dial to try that one.
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