Help identify this Toyo lathe

[boslab]

Get a solid table, old lathe bed, mill table or anything flat preferably with keyways, fit the lathe and get hold of a dividing head centre, mount that to the table, you now have a sort of sliding bed lathe (an awesome machine if you ever get hold of one), challenge will be lining up the three components, you can then at least use it for long work, just an idea.
Mark

[coolgoose]

Thank you Mark. Interesting idea. This had never crossed my mind.

[NiftyNev]

The taper may be the same as the ML-1 which is MT1.5 (never found one this size myself) although with the smaller bore (Toyo ML-1 has a 12mm bore) it could be MT1. . If the register has a 22mm diameter, 7mm depth and a PCD of 26mm then the Proxxon PD230 three jaw chuck and some other accesories apparently fit. I am looking at getting both the three and four jaw Proxxon chuck for my Toyo. They aren't cheap though. Your lathe does not have the hole pattern for the four jaw.

[DR]

I have what appears to be the same lathe except mine doesn't have the name on the headstock. The only labeling on it is a company in California that sells equipment for optics and contact lens making. It came as a package mounted on a 16" square aluminum plate. 1/8 hp DC motor with variable speed. Spindle has a thru hole with a 3C collet taper (missing the collet draw bar).

It's been awhile since I looked at the lathe, this thread reminded me of it. Today I'm going to an o-ring store to get a new drive belt, when I turned it on the drive belt had deteriorated so badly it flew into pieces.

Using a 1/2" 3C I could make a small face plate to hold bigger work. As the lathe is with only the Z axis having any appreciable travel the only thing practical to do with it is turning domed ends on workpieces. They'll be accurate domes though.

[old mart]

Looks to me that the lathe is only for turning the concave sides of the contact lens to fit the curvature of the eyeball to prescription.

[coolgoose]

Thank you DR. Can you please post some pictures of your lathe? I am also thinking of coming up with a small face plate to hold bigger work. Also, an adapter that can take 4 jaw chuck. Can you post a link to this company in California that sells equipment for optics and contact lens making?

[darryl]

If you fit a faceplate, perhaps that could double as a backing plate for the chuck- or could become the chuck itself if you don't mind taking some extra time to create adjustable jaws. You aren't going to be able to make a scroll chuck out of that, but if the faceplate is made with T-slots instead of just slots, you would be able to fit a variety of shop-made jaws to it.

A bonus to doing that is with the semi-permanent backing plate in place, you would be able to mark out the periphery of it and have the capability to index the spindle. I did that to my lathe and it's been very handy.

Making a T-slot faceplate isn't difficult, and doesn't require that you are able to mill slots- it can be an assembly of parts where 4 quarter pie shapes become the front surface of it, spaced off the back plate by some amount. They mount with a fixed distance between each other, automatically creating the T-slots. The jaws would be made much like a fixture that would mount on a mill table. Each jaw could have its own adjustment. This would save you a fair amount of room on the bed.