Yea, that's what i want to do is Change Over every time i need to go from a bit of milling to some turning.....Guess if you were working in a closet where you could only have the FP1, i might see the logic....
Its cute and novel of sorts but hardly "ultimate"
Bet you are one of those guys that thought a "Shop Smith" was a great tool....
Cheers Ross
Ross, you unwittingly mentioned the crux of the problem with our beloved Deckel mills and that is changing the accessories!
Thanks to milacron I was able to find out about that genius product the "Shop Smith and" wondered why this was never marketed in Europe? Could it be that Europeans are more intelligent than Americans, probably not, but it does beg the question!
One thing in the favour of the "Shop Smith" is that the use of aluminium makes the accessories feather light compared to the heavyweight Deckel accessories and although hardened Deckeleers will probably protest at this suggestion, I bet that anyone considering changing a Deckel accessory will think twice about it and probably use another less problematic machine to do those small jobs on.
Be honest now! Don`t try to tell us black is white! If you wanted to machine the hexagon on a special one off bolt would you lug that fatty of an indexing head onto the table to carry out this simple task? I think the answer is an emphatic no but there are always those nutters that would say yes.
That silly little EW lathe that most of you scoffed at could come into play here and provide the answer to many of those simple jobs that are necessary on a daily basis without having to struggle with all those arm stretching Deckel accessories.
I`m not talking about the lathe being under power but being used as a static accessory for those silly little time consuming small jobs that we all unfortunately have to handle. I`m not saying that this small lathe will replace those lead weighted original sexy, desirable Deckel accessories for more complex heavier work, so please don`t try to say that i`m suggesting this.
By utilizing simple adapters to positively mount the lathe onto the Deckel table (not those flimsy ones shown in the photos) the lathe by the addition of a simple detent engaging with a gear attached to the lathe spindle can carry out indexing work to be able to machine the hexagon on that bolt that I mentioned.
Could be used for machining splines, gear teeth etc. and it only weighs about 10Kg
Could replace the Spiral Milling Attachment by adding a train of gears from the leadscrew. The job i`m thinking of here is machining those internal oil grooves in bearings. I know that this can be done on sophisticated dividing heads but we are talking about the Deckel accessories.
By the way! Nobody pointed out that in the photos of the lathe being driven by the vertical head spindle the rotation would be in the wrong direction for driving the lathe spindle!
Alan
