Strange angle ?

[Keith LommanParticipant @keithlomman57852]

Hi

A further look at the LeBlond lathes on that site, it is not the same as the one we had.

This one had a 4 Way tool post and when it was on the stop, parallel with and at right angles to the bed, the slide travel was at an angle.

This has thrown no light on the original post.

Sorry for the confusion

Regards

Keith

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Staurt C,

 

Just to complicate matters I have include below, in full a quote from Tony at Lathes.co.uk about this matter of top slide vs compound. As I said earlier there are conflicting views amongst quite authoritative commentators.

 

Regards

 

Terry

 

Quote:

 

COMPOUND SLIDE REST consisting of the CROSS SLIDE and TOP SLIDE

Sitting on top of the “Saddle” is the “Cross Slide” – that, as its name implies, moves across the bed – and on top of that there is often a “Top Slide” or “Tool Slide” that is invariably arranged so that it can be swivelled and locked into a new position.Very early lathes had a simple T-shaped piece of metal against which the turner “rested” his tool (all turning being done by hand) but when it became possible to move this “Rest” across the bed by a screw feed it became known, appropriately enough, as a “Slide-rest”. The earliest known example of a “Slide-rest” is illustrated in Mittelalterliche Hausbuch, a German publication of about 1480.

After the “Top Slide” became a more common fitting the term “Slide-rest” was not so frequently used – and the different functions of the two slides led to their specific names being more widely adopted.
When two slides are provided (or sometimes, on watchmaker’s lathes, three) the complete assembly is known as the “Compound” or “Compound Slide” or even “Compound Slide-rest”. Some makers have been known to label the “Top Slide” as the “Compound Rest” or even the “Compound Slide” – but as “to compound” means the ‘joining of two or more’ – not ‘one’ – this use of the term in incorrect. The top and cross slide together should be referred to as “the compound”.

[EddieParticipant @eddie]

Hi All

Please get to the topic again.

Strange Angle , not what its called.

Eddie

[Stuart CParticipant @stuartc]

I have spoken to Boxford and as I suspected they have confirmed that it must have been changed.

I’ll do the checking with a dti and mark a new index line on the top/compound slide.

By the way if anybody needs to speak to the guru, Ken Beaumont, at Boxford you’d best do it within 2 weeks as he is retiring.

 

With regard to it being off topic, have a heart Eddie, the other question has also proved quite informative, some useful and interesting information given which may not otherwise have been offered.

 

Thanks everyone.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Graham

Not the end of the story.

In some parts of the county it is called Mystic.

Not sure of exact spelling.

regards david

[Stuart CParticipant @stuartc]

bit odd that Graham, telling us it’s getting a bit silly then proceed to go on about Suds and Slurry

 

PS. Mystic or coolant for me.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Graham,

 

You and me and others may well quite understand what is meant by all these confusing terms. perhaps we are experienced engineers (I have 50 + years and have come across most of these terms) but a newcomer without the benefit of an apprenticeship or years of experience will certainly not have that understanding.

 

I believe that it is good and adds to understanding that we have these discussions. It is not the ‘end of the story’ by a long way.

 

Hi Eddie,

 

I thought that the main subject of this thread was by and large answered as Stuart has shown in his posts.  Debate then usually expands to issues raised surely as part of the exercise.

 

Regards

 

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 09/03/2011 21:54:08

[Stuart CParticipant @stuartc]

” I believe that it is good and adds to understanding that we have these discussions.”

I’m with you Terry, open and good natured discussion is what builds a thorough understanding of a subject as well as what helps to build communities.

Every day is a school day!

[chris stephensParticipant @chrisstephens63393]

Hi Guys,

Just to go back to top v compound and for a bit of light relief, if you have two independent top slides does that make them “compound”, before you ask, yes, I do have two, greedy or what?

chriStephens

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello Terry.

I, living a little far away from the island where MEW is published and having this forum almost as the only mean to communicate with other engineers, thank You for Your effort in explaining, and point to references, in benefit of mere ignorant mortals like me on the meaning of the various (some correct some not so..) names used in Your language to refer those parts of the lathe. In this way I finally learned the difference between topslide and compound slide.

Also learned from Mr. Graham Meek that there are at least three names for the coolant liquid we use in our metal cutting machines.

Hello Stuart:

I second You fully when You say “Every day is a school day!”.

 

Thank You both

Dias Costa

[Sam StonesParticipant @samstones42903]

David Clark 1 wrote –

Not the end of the story.

In some parts of the county it is called Mystic.

Not sure of exact spelling.

 

That’s what we called it in my part of Lancashire, ie. Bolton.

 

A more technical name was soluble oil, and we had two sorts. One for general lathe and milling (machine) work, the other with a nicer smell, was for grinding.

 

Like David, I’m not sure if it was mystic or mistic (mist-stick). In grinding, it certainly became a mist.

 

Sorry to be so far OT, Eddie!!!

 

To climb back OT a little, my Myford ML7 had a top slide which could be indexed in an angular sense for taper turning. Does that mean it was a compound slide?

 

Sam

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Soluble oil for machines was quite a strong mix.

The grinder soluble was much thinner but was also quite slippy.

We also had a very slippy soluble oil we used to tap 15 holes at once in aluminium castings.

This was for British Seagull outboard motor gearboxes.

 

In more recent times, a lot of firms use synthetic soluble and these tended to sting when you had cuts in your hand.

 

regards David

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi all, just another two pennies worth of thought. The toolholder on most lathes can move in three plains, two of them most of us agree are the carrage and the cross slide. That leaves the one that is holding the toolholder which is at the top of the stack. Whether it can be rotated or not, depends on the design of the lathe, but because in most cases it can, its direction of sliding movement cannot be defined, as it can be made to move in parallel to the carrage or cross slide, or at an angle anywhere in between. Hence the term top slide.

 

Maybe this is why in the book “Know Your Lathe” they say the top or tool slide moves along the ways of the “compound rest”, which combines the cross slide and the top slide. I haven’t found any reference in the book to a “compound slide”, so far.

 

In the end it will come down to which reference you prefer, I guess.

 

Regards Nick.

[Stuart CParticipant @stuartc]

funny you should mention maudlsey/whitworth, I served the first year of my apprenticeship at Openshaw Tech.(The site of the Armstrong Whitworth company) which is where I was taught to call it the compound slide

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