Simple turret lathe bar feed methods?

I have a little Wade 7" turret lathe, it uses Wade collets in the spindle which are pretty much like 5c's (but no internal threads). It uses a lever closer and draw-tube, nothing unusual.

I was doing a bar feed job a short while ago, feeding the bar by hand onto a stop in the turret- which was fine but it had the usual problem of the collet pulling the work back when closing. I held the stock against the stop while closing but thats kind of a pain, collet tension can be finicky and sometimes several attempts are needed if the work shifts and the fiddling around soaks up time.

I'm happy with the internal work stop mounted in the tube or collet as the case may be if I have cut parts to load, my question is about bar feed. My bar jobs don't have long stock- maybe 2' at the most. I heard one person made a cylinder of pvc and a wooden piston, fit to the spindle assy and driven by compressed air to keep the bar pushed onto the work stop. I don't have the right air system nor big enough repeating bar jobs for something like that to be a big payoff, so I was hoping to find some simple ideas to avoid manually holding the work while operating the closer. For instance, some kind of ram on its own lever to push the stock once the outside end is inside the spindle might work but I'm sure something like that also leads to complexity- to wit feed fingers on screw machines.

Thanks!

Greg

What about a weight driven bar feeder, just like the old turrets used, just make the pusher long enough to reach down the mandrel.

Plenty of weight on the wire will keep the bar tight, and with a ball race where the pusher rod joins the plunger will cut out the friction.

had a look and whaddaya know - just like this http://www.lathes.co.uk/boleycapstan/

Cool- I like that approach a lot, very simple and achievable. Previous owner left a bunch of stuff bolted to the cabinet I can use to support something like that Thanks!

When I do bar-fed parts on the Hardinge, I take a facing cut to control length. The common style collets like 5C are just not good for exact length control when closing them. I set the turret stock stop to make the bar a little long (it is still a variable amount) so that the facing tool will take a light cut. That is why Brown & Sharpe designed a completely different collet for their screw machines. Hardinge even built a version of the DSM59 with a B&S collet spindle instead of 5C. It saves a tiny amount of wasted stock that can add up on huge volume jobs.

I generally used a multiple tool holder on the front of the lever cross slide with two or three tool bits to create the final profile. I ground the facing tool so that it also did a chamfer.

Larry

Yeah next time I'll probably try more with cut parts rather than bar feed since quantities aren't high. I try to rig a facing tool on the parting slide to set length. Also nice that it opens up a turret position for another op.

Sure wish the Wade was set up with dead length collets, draw-in style makes for a simpler spindle I suppose...

You can also get roller ending tools for the turret - like a roller box but facing cutters.

One dodge is to use the roller ending tools facing cutter as a feed stop by just backing the turret off it's stop say 0.015'' ISH by eye, .......a bit of practice and it becomes second nature, ..it's surprising how close you can hit a pencil line marked across the turret slides.

I did notice the stock pull-back by the collet was pretty consistent, but I had all the tools dialed in at that point and set to run the job...

Pratt & Whitney patented Parkhurst wire feed.

Patent US118481 - Improvement in machinery for feeding wire to machines - Google Patents

Joe in NH