Pictures of a Toolmex TUM-35D2 lathe plus modifications

I'm sharing some pictures of my Toolmex TUM-35D2 lathe and several of the recent modifications I've completed on it. Most recent were the rotary carriage stop, counterweight for the back of the carriage, tailstock quill digital scale, rear spindle cover door, and collet drawer. The counterweight evens out the balance weight-wise of the carriage. I also built the sheet metal modifications of the back splash of which I added the fold down door. It is all original paint except the sheet metal modifications.

I modified a Clausing stead rest to fit this lathe. The last project I have for this machine is to build a follow rest.

Some unique features of this machine include a headstock which is scraped to the v-ways – something that is unusual in a 2004 lathe. The clutch, brake, oil pump and most of the gearing reside in the bottom of the machine’s pedestal thereby reducing heat and vibration in the headstock.

I would be curious to know if anyone else has the D2 version of this machine. I’m considering whether I should add grease to the spindle bearings. Anyone have experience with that?

Some more pictures...

And a few more pictures including a maintenance schedule and a spindle bearing diagram.

The counter weight may be a great idea..... when I was actively rebuilding lathes we noticed that Leblond's with taper attacments typically had a lot less carrage wear than those without

Cyclotronguy said:

The counter weight may be a great idea..... when I was actively rebuilding lathes we noticed that Leblond's with taper attacments typically had a lot less carrage wear than those without

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The counterweight I think probably does help with wear. Neither this lathe nor a Southbend heavy 10 which I have has a taper attachment. Very little weight was riding on the back way. A side benefits of the counterweight seem to be a dampening affect on heavy cuts and maybe an improvement in accuracy - though I've never done any test to verify that.

Do you have any opinion on greasing the spindle bearings on a lathe like this? This is the first lathe I have that has greased spindle bearings. There doesn't seem to be any problem with the spindle - no heat, vibration or accuracy problems - so maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie.

How did you determine how heavy to make the counterweight, or did you basically get as much mass as you could in the space you had? Is it cast iron or steel?

akjeff said:

How did you determine how heavy to make the counterweight, or did you basically get as much mass as you could in the space you had? Is it cast iron or steel?

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I tried to get as much weight as I could to approximate my guess of what the taper attachment would weigh. In this case I used about an 1.5" thick piece of steel plate. There is also a vertical piece underneath that doesn't show in the picture. I also extended off the back as far as I could and still clear everything like the backsplash.

Tailstock4

Openions on grease loaded spindle bearings, sure: when possible follow the OEM suggestions.

On some of the old Hobby lathes we rebuilt where there was no lube callout but clearly grease lube we went with Polyurea EP-1 or a moly fortified EP-0.

The deciding factor was heat rise. If A properly loaded bearing had more than a 20 degree C rise at top spindle RPM with EP-1 we switched to EP-0. In all cases the bearings were packed as shown in the SKF bearing manual

Cyclotronguy said:

Tailstock4

Openions on grease loaded spindle bearings, sure: when possible follow the OEM suggestions.

On some of the old Hobby lathes we rebuilt where there was no lube callout but clearly grease lube we went with Polyurea EP-1 or a moly fortified EP-0.

The deciding factor was heat rise. If A properly loaded bearing had more than a 20 degree C rise at top spindle RPM with EP-1 we switched to EP-0. In all cases the bearings were packed as shown in the SKF bearing manual

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. I have the manufacturer’s instructions and the Kluber grease. What I’m curious about is if anyone has done the service to a Toolmex like this one or a spindle set up like this. I know the Okuma lathes have a similar set up and I'm sure there are others.

I was wondering if anyone who had added grease experienced temperature rise, was there a need to go through a run-in process for the bearings, etc. Or, is this something suggested in the manual but no one typically does.

This machine doesn’t have many hours on it so I’m factoring this in, too.