Tool post drilling in a small lathe

RaisedByWolves said:
How much mass is in the handwheel?

On our15"? 17"? Mori Seiki the handwheel probably weighs 5lbs.

A quick flick towards you and the tailstock quill is retracting the bit out of the hole with a quickness.

Im going ot replace the aluminum handwheels on my Prazi SD400 with cast iron wheels just for this purpose. Well that, and the tailstock is horribly unbalanced with a chuck in it.

As to the tool post drilling, not a fan honestly.
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My larger lathe tailstock spins pretty nicely when I give it a whirl.

I still prefer kicking the feed out, wheeling the carriage out, back in, and flicking on the feed again. Lol! :p
 
I got one of those Aloris drill holders with a batch of tool holders I bought at an auction.
For kicks I used it once or twice and then it sat in the drawer for a couple of years.
My conclusion was, why have to center my tool post to drill a hole when my tail stock is already dead on?
I could see using it in a production setting where you have to drill a big hole in a bunch of the same parts.
But even then?
With a good, sharp bit I can crank on the tail stock hand wheel and make evenly coiled chips 3 feet long if I dont reverse the hand wheel and break them off. It is not like it's hard work.
But...
Everyone does things a little different and that's just fine with me.
I did not find that tool terribly useful so I brought it back to the auction house where I bought it and sold it again with some other surplus stuff.
By the way, The pin that ejects the MT tool out of my tailstock has always been missing - it's broken off in there.
So I've always had to use a drift to knock it out.
Just yesterday I decided I'm going to disassemble the quill, chuck up the threaded shaft, clamp a drill in my QCTP and drill it out with the carriage. Then make a new pin and press it in.
Drilling with the carriage is an occasion where a spotting drill works much better than a center drill as the tip isn't nearly so fragile. I was given a handfull of spotting drills and find myself using them more and more often.
 

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verbotenwhisky said:
Okay, I can see the power feed argument. I have a single piece digital DRO on my tail stock. I think I'd rather use the tail stock.
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Whiskey the idea of using the tool post to drill instead of the tail stock is for speed and what I call peck drilling as on a mill. (rapid clearing of the chips extends drill life) I can see some advantages if someone wants to use power feed but I don't care for power feed when drilling. I guess if you have some huge diameter bits it would be okay as I have power feed on my old Camelback drill press. I doubt if I will use M-2 drills on the tool post on my little lathe. Smallest M-2 drill I have is about 3/8". so I will just stick an extra chuck or use the keyless with the M-2 shank on it and use the bigger M-2 and M-3 bits on my bigger lathe in the tail stock. The M-T 2 tool post does open up ideas when using a boring bar. Plenty of MT-2 drills that are broken or worn out that would make the start of a good boring bar.
 
verbotenwhisky said:
Yep, now I am thinking that is a great idea, I like the shape of those better as well.
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I searched high and low for ones with the right look at a price that didn't blow my socks off.

Those are not cheap by any means, but the only other ones I found that "Looked right" were twice the price.
 
RaisedByWolves said:
I searched high and low for ones with the right look at a price that didn't blow my socks off.

Those are not cheap by any means, but the only other ones I found that "Looked right" were twice the price.
Click to expand...
The ones on my lathe are not properly shaped, I will likely change them out...
 
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