haha, "kits". It's all good.
I think the tailstock is only ever used locked down, isn't that true? So this is just about keeping it in place while moving it around for setup... while maintaining alignment. I mean, what could go wrong? haha
what's curious to me is that they clearly did this purposefully, which sort of makes sense: that is, the cross-slide is used in motion, so it needs unambiguous positioning. The bed plus vee is sort of over-defined: it's much easier to keep a line and a surface aligned (vee plus single bearing surface on the distant way) than adding the second way bearing surface next to the vee, mechanically.
I am so unfamiliar with the gory details of lathes, I want to go study a few up-close. I need to find some machines nearby that people don't mind me crawling all over. Probably not too likely.
Anyway, I am happy with what I learned today, and I think my solution is a decent one once I clean it up. We'll see.
I don't think there's a different tailstock for this lathe, although that's not the same as saying there shouldn't be. I think they're using what they've got to throw these things together. With my solution there's almost as much contact with the ways as possible, in lock-down. I've definitely got the same tailstock as in the Amazon photo of the lathe. In fact, most videos I see online of cheap mini-lathes have something very similar, including the vee + single-way detail.
Now I just have to swap in the new headstock bearings, add a lock to the cross-slide, add power feed to the cross-slide, swap in a bigger motor, and add CNC the whole thing. Piece of cake.
