Some time ago I was fortunate enough to buy a Schaublin 70 turret lathe. It occurred to me that Schaublin proudly boasts that parts and assemblies are interchangeable, between, for instance their toolroom lathes and their turret lathes, so wouldn't it be a good thing to have a carriage and compound slide to use on odd occasions. So I looked around for a secondhand "Chariot a vis" (Schaublins terminology). The cheapest I saw was EU1,600 plus postage. So I thought "Crikey….I'll roll my own". Using data derived from on line drawings and manuals a series of drawings were produced, which represented a simplified but similar size assembly. Original features which were not incorporated are

1/ Pressure oiling, the original features a very complex network of oilways, all fed from a single point. Wonderful for a machine which is used a lot, but not so practical for occasional use.

2/ Taper gibs. Initially I couldn't see how to organise this. It wasn't until metal was cut that the penny dropped.

3/ The original used 6.5mm x 1.0mm trapezoidal thread leadscrews. I couldn't source appropriate taps and dies to do this, at least without eating for a year. So I used M6 x 1.0, I had to make 6 of them before I got two acceptable ones though!

So after about a year of drawing and machining it's almost finished, just a few odds and ends to do and it' ready to go. I have installed it on the Schaublin and it works quite well. All the machining was done on my Sieg C3 lathe and Sieg X2 mill. The four main bits were grey cast iron…Meehanite. The gib strips are silver steel, with pegs and lockscrews.

cheers

Bill

Edited By Bill Pudney on 17/01/2019 04:40:02