Just had a thought

[Tony Kahn]

We all watched as Marc built the beast, several of us commented on possibly making a dedicated bowl one but couldn't think of how to do tool rest. How about a concrete headstock with a thrid leg off of the back, then make it to accept whatever bed extension you want i.e. PM 20" extension and 24" tool base set for 699 at tool king. you now have a 24" swing bowl lathe, or cast a second independant stand to mount the bed and tool rest to and use it like a stand alone tool rest. just a thought. surely you could find a mobile base that would hold it to make it easily moved to general location then use the movement of bnjo to fine tune.

[Brian McInturff]

Toney,
In a previous thread Mark mentioned doing an articulated arm. It'll pivot in a couple places and have a center leg that goes to the floor. It'll be mounted to the side. That'll give him the ability to swing it to whatever position he needs and lock it in. That was my interpretation anyway.:cool:

[Mark Norman]

I have had several ideas for adding a tool rest, including a bed extension from another manufacturer and matching banjo attached to the concrete headstock. I would rather not use a competitors parts on my machine:)

Why would you limit it to 24" though? :crazy:

Like Brian mentioned, and articulating arm is my design of choice and have the most versatility. Its in the design stages now. I realy am liking the scaffolding tool rest though. With a little modification (three legs instead of four) it may be just the ticket.

If I was to cast a second chunk to act as support for a tool rest it would more likely act as a tail stock and roll on tracks to allow an infinate spindle length:D

Wanna turn a 3' tree trunk about 20 feet long? ;)

Yer thinking like me though, with the third leg off the back it would open up more possibilities. I Made the round body of the machine removable for just that reason. I will be doing just that for a dedicated bowl lathe. In the begining I was stuck "inside the box" and I thought I needed to have ways. I have since changed my approach and will likely do without the round body part and foot and go with ballast off the back instead.

[Wally Dickerman]

For about 10 years I turned on a custom (left handed) Nichols lathe. It had a double bed. The top be had a 26 inch swing. With the top bed slid back it had 38 inch swing. Maybe something of this nature could be done.

The body of the lathe was a sand reservoir. I had 800 lb. of sand in it and it was about half full. The lathe by itself was also 800 lb.

The pic wasn't taken in my shop. It was waiting to be sold and was in my unused second garage.

Wally

[Mark Norman]

Why not just post a reply in my concrete build lathe thread instead of a new post?

Wally, that is the simplicity in design I was after. Just too much steel and not enough concrete;) Love the wood hand wheel though, just might have to look into that:)

[Nathan Hawkes]

Wow, Wally! I saved copies of those pics for future viewing.....

Nice lathe. Same concept as Stubby lathes, but this seems to predate them. I'm very jealous!