Traditional Engine lathes have much in common. They have to turn your work while a near stationary cutter comes to bear. For example when drilling with a lathe you hold the it steady and turn the work. It's sort of like screwing in a lightbulb by rotating the house. The lathe needs to be robust enough to turn the work. If you are making small round things this isn't much of an issue, but the logistics get more interesting if you are making cannon barrels or something big and heavy.
I'll begin with a series of tool holders and unique cutting tools. Don't take these to be the only types or even current types. There are many kinds of cutting tools and these are some I have, but they just 'happened' and may not even be good examples.
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| Shopmade roatating tool holder |
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| Shop made Lantern holder |
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| Factory built Lantern |
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| Very Old Cutter |
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| Shop made Boring Bar Holder |
I'll begin with a series of tool holders and unique cutting tools. Don't take these to be the only types or even current types. There are many kinds of cutting tools and these are some I have, but they just 'happened' and may not even be good examples. The Lantern tool holder is the classic for lathes. You can turn the tool, and rock it up and down to get the right height. Before the days of High Speed Steel, the cutters were massive pieces like the "Very Old Cutter" in the 4th photo down. They went directly into the lantern holder. Machining took a great leap forward with the perfection of HSS--High speed steel which occurred with the dawn of the 20th century.. With that came holders that would fit in the lanterns to hold the smaller pieces of it. Later (after 1926) the Carbide cutters came along which were still smaller.
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| Four foot slotted face plate for LMT |
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| Slot holder |
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| Alternate view Slot holder |
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| First piece in |
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| Installed proud |
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| Installed flush |
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| Another View |
Face plates are fairly common appliances for lathes. They are the very oldest solution and predate chucks. Now typically they are a flat plate and you attach things to be turned to them anyway you can. By contrast the chucks have movable jaws or grabbing things. Most face plates have radiating T slots for attaching things. This particular face plate is somewhat unique in that it has just a variety of short slots, which apparently take wedgie holders such as the ones displayed here. I believe the holders were made by a local machinist and didn't come with the plate, but I would expect that the 'factory' holders were similar wedge affairs simply because I can't think of what else would fill the slots for holding purposes.
There is just one rule about boring bars. Bigger is better as long as it is not so big that it won't fit in the hole. The issue with boring bars is stiffness. Boring bars want to flex, and the smaller and longer they are the more they want to flex. However by definition a boring bar is something that reaches into a hole. This boring bar is about as big a one as I have deal with. You also need to pay attention to the size of the lathe in making a boring bar holder. It puts a lot of leverage on the compound and if you rip the compound off the carriage, your lathes is scrap metal.