- Joined
- Jul 2, 2014
- Messages
- 7,594
It is possible to put a dog on the drill with the tail against the compound or cross slide to take the torque of heavy drilling. It works. I have pretty much given up on trying to drill big holes in steel with the tailstock. Too many things can and do go wrong, and it hurts the work, the tooling and the lathe, and makes the operator (me!) afraid of it, which is not a good thing. I have taken to drilling a single hole (no step drilling) that I know I can do safely and with confidence and then boring the hole to completion. Takes longer, but is a lot less exciting.