I mentioned the topslide had a really naff mounting, here it is. The slide is upside down and you can see the roundy bit that fits in the hole on the carriage. Secured with a single grubscrew from the side. It's prob OK'ish with normal turning but not for what I'm doing at the mo.
So having decided to remove the topslide altogether I now needed a way to secure the toolpost directly to the carriage. Having T-slots made doing this quite simple.
This is what I came up with. It's a raiser block made from steel bar with one central 10mm thread for the toolpost and two 8mm through holes for 8mm bolts to clamp with the T-nut.
A couple of pic's, I won't go into making the block as that should be fairly obvious to anyone here.
I had to clamp all the bits together to make sure it all fitted properly. So in this state it was clear that some other tasks would be easier to manage.
Sawing the T-bar to length
Centred the block in the four jaw and trimmed the ends of the bar equally, not necessary but why not as it was now in place. Then I trimmed both 8mm bolts to a suitable length. Note the use oh a HSS tool, I have learnt not to try this with carbide tips ....
A little de-burring and now fitted to the lathe carriage
QCTP fitted...lovely ... that should help the chatter I was getting from the compound slide ....
