Greetings Machinists,
I use a WWII era Hardinge split bed lathe (TR-59, but set up with a turret tailstock, lever cross slide, 5c collets/closer, vertical cutoff, and a make shift bar feeder extension used on small diameter stuff) to turn very simple parts (think dowels and bushings but with drilling, reaming, and cross drilling on most parts). Most of my production runs are 50-250 parts, with some of the regular parts as high as 500 pieces. The parts are either 6061 Aluminum or 360 brass.
I keep a cross drilling setup in the rear side of the slide, which sometimes gets changed out for a Model E taper turning slide. This leaves me with an open station in the front, which usually has a double radius tool mounted to give a 3/32 radius to the back end of one part and the front end of the next before the cutoff operation. If I can post a picture, I will, but I'm a new member and might not have the priveleges on the board.
I'd like to add a modern skiving toolholder to the front of the lever cross slide so that I can do more complex shapes in a single pass. All the skiving and form tool holders out there seem to be designed around the B&S or similar automatics. On the cross slide, I have about 6 of travel to use between the front tool, rear tool and clearance for the part, plus hand filing and Scotch-brite operations. Spindle centerline to the cross slide top is 2-5/16, or 1-5/16 using the Hardinge riser block.
Here is where I need advice: What Brown and Sharpe machine is my setup closest to? Most of the skiving holders I have come across have models for the B&S 00's, 0's, and 2's. The body dimensions of the 00 holders seem like they would be a great fit in my machine, but they mostly list a maximum turned part length of .75 for the 00 and 1.5 for the 0 size. I'd like to be able to turn at least a 1.875 L part, but 2 or 2.25 would be great to have in a pinch. Does anybody have any experience on this? The dovetail blanks are available up to 2.5 and since the skiving process has limited tool contact compared to form tooling, it seems like I could get away with cutting a wider part, especially since I'm working with brass and aluminum.
Here are a couple modern examples:
Brown & Sharpe Automatics page 24 on the pdf
Schiltter's Tool near the end of the page
http://www.schlittertool.com/PDF%20Catalogs/B&S2007.pdf pages 5,7,9 depending on machine model
And here is Hardinge-made a version that looks like it would drop right into my cross slide. I'd have to buy used, and I'm concerned with the max capacity listed as 1.5 part length:
Hardinge D1 Skiving Tool Holder Hard to Find | eBay
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Here are a few answers to questions you might have:
Why do you use such an old machine? Because it was cheap, it runs well, and can do everything I've needed so far.
Why don't you get a cnc lathe or proper screw machine? I can't afford to, and the jobs don't justify it (yet).
Do you know anything about skiving? Not really, I just discovered it on the internet, and it appears to be the ideal upgrade. None of the machinists I know personally have any experience with it. From what I have read, feed rates, dimensional accuracy, and surface finish are all superior to standard form tooling which plunge cuts the entire part width, whereas skiving essentially shears material tangentially.
How much stock are you looking to remove? Anywhere from a cleanup cut on raw bar stock, to a maximum of 1/2 the od. Conveniently, the references I've found so far indicate that 1/2D is the maximum depth of cut.
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I use a WWII era Hardinge split bed lathe (TR-59, but set up with a turret tailstock, lever cross slide, 5c collets/closer, vertical cutoff, and a make shift bar feeder extension used on small diameter stuff) to turn very simple parts (think dowels and bushings but with drilling, reaming, and cross drilling on most parts). Most of my production runs are 50-250 parts, with some of the regular parts as high as 500 pieces. The parts are either 6061 Aluminum or 360 brass.
I keep a cross drilling setup in the rear side of the slide, which sometimes gets changed out for a Model E taper turning slide. This leaves me with an open station in the front, which usually has a double radius tool mounted to give a 3/32 radius to the back end of one part and the front end of the next before the cutoff operation. If I can post a picture, I will, but I'm a new member and might not have the priveleges on the board.
I'd like to add a modern skiving toolholder to the front of the lever cross slide so that I can do more complex shapes in a single pass. All the skiving and form tool holders out there seem to be designed around the B&S or similar automatics. On the cross slide, I have about 6 of travel to use between the front tool, rear tool and clearance for the part, plus hand filing and Scotch-brite operations. Spindle centerline to the cross slide top is 2-5/16, or 1-5/16 using the Hardinge riser block.
Here is where I need advice: What Brown and Sharpe machine is my setup closest to? Most of the skiving holders I have come across have models for the B&S 00's, 0's, and 2's. The body dimensions of the 00 holders seem like they would be a great fit in my machine, but they mostly list a maximum turned part length of .75 for the 00 and 1.5 for the 0 size. I'd like to be able to turn at least a 1.875 L part, but 2 or 2.25 would be great to have in a pinch. Does anybody have any experience on this? The dovetail blanks are available up to 2.5 and since the skiving process has limited tool contact compared to form tooling, it seems like I could get away with cutting a wider part, especially since I'm working with brass and aluminum.
Here are a couple modern examples:
Brown & Sharpe Automatics page 24 on the pdf
Schiltter's Tool near the end of the page
http://www.schlittertool.com/PDF%20Catalogs/B&S2007.pdf pages 5,7,9 depending on machine model
And here is Hardinge-made a version that looks like it would drop right into my cross slide. I'd have to buy used, and I'm concerned with the max capacity listed as 1.5 part length:
Hardinge D1 Skiving Tool Holder Hard to Find | eBay
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Here are a few answers to questions you might have:
Why do you use such an old machine? Because it was cheap, it runs well, and can do everything I've needed so far.
Why don't you get a cnc lathe or proper screw machine? I can't afford to, and the jobs don't justify it (yet).
Do you know anything about skiving? Not really, I just discovered it on the internet, and it appears to be the ideal upgrade. None of the machinists I know personally have any experience with it. From what I have read, feed rates, dimensional accuracy, and surface finish are all superior to standard form tooling which plunge cuts the entire part width, whereas skiving essentially shears material tangentially.
How much stock are you looking to remove? Anywhere from a cleanup cut on raw bar stock, to a maximum of 1/2 the od. Conveniently, the references I've found so far indicate that 1/2D is the maximum depth of cut.
