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Superbly made boring, facing and radiusing head

I've got a Tree taper boring head, which I find incredibly useful, and just about had a toolgasm when I saw this guy's radius adapter.

I wonder if there's some way to combine this rack/pinion action with the wheel dresser (e.g., JS FluidMotion) tangent-to-radius transition mechanism?
 
The "swing" on my mill is quite a bit bigger than my lathe, Bill. :) 16" swing lathe with about 5" centerline to cross-slide, but #3-sized mill with up to 19" centerline to column in vertical mode. Additionally, no issue with massively unbalanced parts.

So, yes, we use the lathe for lathe parts. The Tree head is still extremely useful for parts that are not conveniently handled on the lathe.
 
The "swing" on my mill is quite a bit bigger than my lathe, Bill. :) 16" swing lathe with about 5" centerline to cross-slide, but #3-sized mill with up to 19" centerline to column in vertical mode. Additionally, no issue with massively unbalanced parts.

So, yes, we use the lathe for lathe parts. The Tree head is still extremely useful for parts that are not conveniently handled on the lathe.

Were it otherwise, I'd not have just bought yet-another Chandler-Duplex.

The concept is sound enough.

The toolmaker just picked a 'too easy to do' example for the video. Also showed us near-zero of measuring - his tool dials or external devices. One presumes he did such, but paused the camera or even edited it out?

Make that a boss on the side of a large item that even a 30" or 50" lathe cannot swing, and make it in STEEL so one can see that his tool can stand a bit of load without folding or dropping one into Kevin Potters' "like licking an iceberg" rate of metal removal?

THEN he'd have followers - even perhaps even a market.

As it is, there surely are a lot of small screws, pins, gears, and such. Not all look to be able to stand more than shiney-wood stresses, even if run gently.

But we digress..

GREAT job he did of working out the geometry, the gearing, the angles, and then also making it modular.

Bill
 
I'm 75, very experienced, and have seen most of the wonders of the machine and tool shop. I'm dazzled. The radius tracing mechanism may have been inspired by kinematics found in many dies sinkers. If that Italian fellow designed and built the radius tuning attachment for that Tree taper boring head my hat's off to him.
 
The Tree heads are not "hoggers" and are meant for fine, accurate work in all metals. They are quite hefty and do their best work in a stouter mill than what he was using in the video. My Tree heads have scraped dovetails, I couldn't see if he had done this on his. But a fantastic bit of work that is way above my brain and skill scale.
 
The Tree heads are not "hoggers" and are meant for fine, accurate work in all metals.

True.

They are quite hefty and do their best work in a stouter mill than what he was using in the video.

Maybe. See your first statement above. The thin slide and small tooling is more the limit, than whether it is run on a mill-drill or a #5 Milwaukee.

My Tree heads have scraped dovetails,...

I've always wondered about that and kind of doubt it for the production slides, but possibly.
It's more of a hand applied (gravure? file? dremel type tool???) cross hatching. The slide was probably ground. Maybe a spot of touch up hand fitting before boxing for shipment, they are nicely made.

smt_boringTree4.jpg


smt
 
The thin slide and small tooling is more the limit, than whether it is run on a mill-drill or a #5 Milwaukee.

"Not for hogging" is an understatement. It is indeed all about those weaker bits, not the overall body.

Problem-solvers as these can be, (the less-capable Chandler-Duplex here) I've got ignorant kitchen cutlery as is stronger-built.

Extreme care as to finesse in use serves. Very extreme.

Crashes? Simply not survivable.

Bill
 
meanwhile in the same building unbeknownst to this guy there is another machinist that has made tooling to use on his lathe to help him with mill work. :)

Beautiful parts for sure.
 
I am really glad some people on here were impressed. If it had gotten the usual, "no big deal, everyone makes those, home shop junk", response I probably would have thrown in the towel on continuing being a machinist because that looked like damn impressive engineering and build quality to me. I doubt I could have ever come up with something that complex that actually worked.
 
I am really glad some people on here were impressed. If it had gotten the usual, "no big deal, everyone makes those, home shop junk", response I probably would have thrown in the towel on continuing being a machinist because that looked like damn impressive engineering and build quality to me. I doubt I could have ever come up with something that complex that actually worked.

I AM 'impressed'.

But more by the accuracy of his geometry and the quality of workmanship to make it 'modular' - that complexity isn't so much in the parts-count as in the maths - than by the practical strength of it.

That said, I've been impressed by good Shakespeare fishing reels of days gone by as well.

:)
 
A nice piece of tooling for certain, and to have made it himself is a giant feather in his cap.

It seems very complicated even for himself to operate, with a lot of small screws and adjustments.
 
A nice piece of tooling for certain, and to have made it himself is a giant feather in his cap.

It seems very complicated even for himself to operate, with a lot of small screws and adjustments.

Certainly less complicated than building a CNC machining centre from scratch - PCB boards, servos, and all. But those ARE what does these complex and blended profiles day-in, day-out with help of the software and far fewer barriers to success.

Nice work, but the somewhat 'hobbyist' moniker at Post #1 was appropriate.

Bill
 
I went and pulled both of mine out to have a look. Mine do not have that cross hatch, and is a pure hand scraped surface. I am sure Tree as time went on were looking for a way to expedite production without loss of quality. As far as my "hefty" comment, in a poor analogy, I consider the Tree head like a 400 lb master watch maker, he can do wonderful delicate work but needs a stout chair.
 
Interesting about the scraping. Easy to imagine for starting out. And as mentioned, can see definitely some hand fit "touch-up" as things became more production oriented, for such a finely made tool.

I can see your 400 lb watchmaker analogy, but would have no problem running the Tree in my mill-drill and getting excellent work up to the limits imposed inherently by the Tree's construction. However, can't do comparison tests, made a 30taper shank to reduce the overhang and run in my SB turret mill. The m-d takes R8.

smt
 








 
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