I accidentally bought another lathe from eBay. It is beautifully made, in the 1920s, with no regard to cost practicality or logic. One of these: http://www.lathes.co.uk/rivett/page2.html
It isn't quite as nice as the one in the pictures, and has no changewheels or screwcutting box. (imagine is stops short at the back of the headstock). Should I CNC it? If I do, I would have to do it sympathetically. (My other hobby is vehicles from the same era). As the entire cross-slide pops off at the flick of a lever, it is not difficult to imagine a slot-on CNC cross-slide, possibly incorporating a tool turret. In this respect the conversion is easier than the Chinese lathe I converted. However, the Z-axis poses something of a quandry. There is no way at all to swap the leadscrew to a ballscrew. It sits snugly in a semicircular slot in the bed. So, perhaps I could mount a ballscrew on a bracket at the back. Then I could slot-on the CNC top-slide and bolt it to the nut, and if I wanted to use the lathe in manual mode I could unbolt it, swap back to the manual toolslide, and resort to craftsmanship. Or, I could just convert it to an electric leadscrew with an Arduino and sell it on as a working lathe. I do think it needs to be mounted on an oak cabinet like the original Rivett ones. I think that looks great :-) (Then flat-belt drive to a motor/vfd mounted underneath) -- atp If you can't fix it, you don't own it. http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows: Build for Windows Store. http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
