Lathe headstock as a tailstock?

[LittleWatchShop]

Anybody on this forum ever thought about doing this to either 1) get the material true before tightening the collet, or 2) holding the material true while graving?

Seems like a good idea to me.  I used it today.

I have tapered collet holder and have used it in a traditional tailstock.  This idea, seems better.

[jdm]

12 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Anybody on this forum ever thought about doing this to either 1) get the material true before tightening the collet

Not sure what you mean. If you turn something with a loose collect, not only there will be no precision in the work, but you risk to damage the grabbing surfaces of the collet also.

Other than that, using a 2nd headstock is done sometime, but isn't common.
First of all, turning far way from the collet is not an every day occurrence  in watchmaking, so supporting the sticking end of the work is most often not necessary.
When the cut is far from the collect, and is not possible to shift the work into it, the common way is to mount the chuck drill, bring the work almost all the way in the collet, face and center drill it. Then use a tailstock center and re-position the work for that.
There are tailstock centers which cut in half on the vertical plane, or concave cone, or bull nose, to hold and center satisfactorily. Although these all are more for general machining than watchmaking.
Last but not least, headstocks were, and are, expensive. Savvy craftsmen would not buy one unless in the absolute necessity, and knowing that it would have payed back its price.

[LittleWatchShop]

There have been a few instances where the work did extend far enough out that I needed something to true it.  Yesterday, it happened again, but now I have forgotten why (LOL).  That is when I concocted this idea.

I have turned a tapered center that has a cup in the end rather than a point (like a dead center)--to accomplish what you noted above.  Yesterday...I could not find it!

The idea of drilling a hole in the work and using a dead center is a good one--I like it.

Regarding expense...well...you can get these WW headstocks for $100 on ebay.  One Bergeon tool of almost anything in their catalog will cost you that!!!

Hey...I am still learning.

Yesterday, the task was to turn an index pin for a headstock (that had just arrived from ebay without one).

I have a lathe fettish...gonna have to get past that at some point...ugh.

[jdrichard]

19 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

Anybody on this forum ever thought about doing this to either 1) get the material true before tightening the collet, or 2) holding the material true while graving?

Seems like a good idea to me.  I used it today.

I have tapered collet holder and have used it in a traditional tailstock.  This idea, seems better.

That is just nuts....but i like it. as long as the lathes are the same brand, this could have some use.....i must now investigate.   For alignment, often lathe Head and tail stocks are joined and cut!

[LittleWatchShop]

1 hour ago, jdrichard said:

That is just nuts....but i like it. as long as the lathes are the same brand, this could have some use.....i must now investigate.   For alignment, often lathe Head and tail stocks are joined and cut!

I have matching serial number head/tail/bed for three of my lathes, so the head-tail issue matches as well as can be I suppose.  In the experiment shown, I used a boley headstock (which I bought by itself on ebay) on a peerless lathe--seemed to align perfectly.

[jdm]

27 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

In the experiment shown, I used a boley headstock (which I bought by itself on ebay) on a peerless lathe--seemed to align perfectly.

Not surprising when all these are Geneva pattern lathes. If you want to check how well really the tailstock and ways align to the headstock you need a precision ground bar and of course a test indicator. Check errors along the length the bedway, on vertical and horizontal axes, moving the carriage. Rotate the bar and see if you can average or something strange goes on. In some cases errors from different components of the geometry may sum or cancel each other.

[nickelsilver]

Both headstocks look _exactly_ Peerless to me, and Peerless aligns with V ways in the center slot, Boley and pretty much every other make aligns with V ways on the edges of the bed.

 

As you're lathe addicted, do try to find one with a collet holding tailstock. You'll find it solves all your problems. I make parts for customers on the lathe literally every day for the last couple of decades +, often prototype parts for very picky Swiss companies with tolerance windows of 4 microns (sometimes less), and for all that time it's been my trusty Boley Leinen. Ball bearing headstock, micrometric collet holding tailstock and lever collet holding tailstock, Levin cross slide*. It does everything, well, and has paid for itself probably thousands of times over.

 

*I've never seen a cross slide better than Levin. Very easily the best, and 20 years in Switzerland it's always fun when a Swiss or French or German (other countries too) try it and and are like "wtf?!!"- they are always 100% amazed and start searching for one.

 

 

[LittleWatchShop]

9 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

Both headstocks look _exactly_ Peerless to me, and Peerless aligns with V ways in the center slot, Boley and pretty much every other make aligns with V ways on the edges of the bed.

 

As you're lathe addicted, do try to find one with a collet holding tailstock. You'll find it solves all your problems. I make parts for customers on the lathe literally every day for the last couple of decades +, often prototype parts for very picky Swiss companies with tolerance windows of 4 microns (sometimes less), and for all that time it's been my trusty Boley Leinen. Ball bearing headstock, micrometric collet holding tailstock and lever collet holding tailstock, Levin cross slide*. It does everything, well, and has paid for itself probably thousands of times over.

 

*I've never seen a cross slide better than Levin. Very easily the best, and 20 years in Switzerland it's always fun when a Swiss or French or German (other countries too) try it and and are like "wtf?!!"- they are always 100% amazed and start searching for one.

 

 

I have considered you the master of lathes since you started responding to my questions early this year!  The reason I called it a Boley is because somebody wrote "Boley" with a marker on the bottom and I never bothered to validate that.  All of my lathes (four and change) are the same styles, which I guess is the "Peerless" style.

Since one of our earlier discussions, I have been measuring the runout on all of my headstocks and now have one that does not move the needle at the resolution I can measure (less resolution than the one you have).  I think that the others are quite good as well even though I see needle movement.  Pretty sure that some of the movement is due to scratches that would otherwise not introduce errors.

And then...collets are equally important I suppose.  I have been collecting collets as well--not an inexpensive habit.  I have a full set with numerous duplicates, but my goal is to ultimately have a full set of all the same brand.  A little nuts...I know.  I will get over this illness at some point.

[LittleWatchShop]

20 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

4 microns

BTW, the first integrated circuit I designed used a metal linewidth of 8 microns.  The last one I designed used a metal linewidth of 0.18 microns.  During that long period of circuit designs, I would probe the lines (to test and debug) with micromanipulators.

Not the same is turning stuff to those dimensions, but it certainly gives me perspective on what 4 microns really means!

[nickelsilver]

12 hours ago, LittleWatchShop said:

BTW, the first integrated circuit I designed used a metal linewidth of 8 microns.  The last one I designed used a metal linewidth of 0.18 microns.  During that long period of circuit designs, I would probe the lines (to test and debug) with micromanipulators.

Not the same is turning stuff to those dimensions, but it certainly gives me perspective on what 4 microns really means!

Ha, I've been experimenting with UV mask for etching (stainless, not electronic stuff) and have been having issues with line widths of 0.2mm, having spoken to some electronics guys I realized I really have to upgrade my process as it should be easy at that dimension! I know it's a different world in the sub-micron range, but two tenths of a mm is "big", haha.