Long travel compound?

I'm thinking I'd like to either buy or make a new compound with extended travel for my Boxford (SB clone) lathe. Did South Bend make a compound with maybe 4" of usable travel or anything like that?

Sure they did..

On larger lathes with wider dovetails, saddles, beds, to handle the extra load, imposed by all the extra leverage...

These machines were built to a price vs capability point..

A 1934 16 in Lathe, only had 3 3/4 of compound travel, at almost 3 times the weight...

Putting a larger overhang compound, on a smaller lathe most likely will result in ..

A. Chatter ..... Nothing like trying to cut that longish taper, and have it turn into a chatterfest halfway there...

B. Saddle wing twist under load

C. Possible breakage/deforming of a dovetail, or worse.. For example: compound breaking at tool holder T slot... Worse breaking saddle dovetail..

The weeny wedge screw, compound mounting system, is NOT very solid..

I have spent HOURS watching all the joints, from saddle to compound, flexing merrily away, while using a small milling attachment... on a 9 in SB...

You can not turn a 9 inch SB into a 16 in, just by making a different compound...

I would imagine that Boxford spares, are just slighty less common, than the LONG produced SB...

Thats what taper attachments are for, and the optional turret tailstock for straight work... Link : http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/sb-tailstock-turret-177041/

If SB thought that a 4 inch travel compound on a light 9 in lathe, would have worked, it would have been fitted...

And the 16 inch would have had 8 inch of compound travel, untill someone used it, and it broke cleanly in half...

SB did not make lathes in the Monarch or Pacemaker class....

OK, good reasons not to, but here is a little more information. I have a slightly different configuration of saddle and cross slide with more area for support. (see attachment) Also, a larger lathe is not in the cards for quite a while. I consider this to be like extended tailstock travel - just more convenience and more capability. I'm not wanting to make the lathe into something its not, just extend capability in an incremental way.