Another asset to the workshop tooling register
I love to use gravers. It is like turning wood but with metal.
I have four regular use gravers made to William Smith’s receipe, two for general turning, two for parting. These get used in conjunction with my Hemminway quick release hand turning rest as shown below.
There is something very therapeutic about being in direct contact with the material being worked on rather than being decoupled through a tool post and handwheels.
I have a potential project looming that will require hand turning and on a larger scale than is practical with my gravers. If I had a CNC lathe this would be straightforward but alas this is something maybe for the future. After some research I came across the Eccentric Engineering Turnado hand turning device. There are a few videos on YouTube about it and I believe Quinn at Blondie Hacks uses one. She also uses Eccentric Engineering’s tangential/diamond toolpost which is another of Gary’s useful products. Here is a screenshot from Gary’s site.
I took the plunge and ordered a Turnado. It arrived on my doorstep here in the UK 3 days after posting from Australia which was impressive.
The kit as received needs dedicating to the lathe on which it will be used. This involves deciding how to mount the working table on the carriage and setting the lathe centre height correctly. Setting the table height involves turning down five pillars to the correct length – quite a simple process you would think…. but I blew it and cut them too short. Totally inexcusable clang and I had to remake them. Very red face and very blue language resulted. The correct gap between the two plates was 12.7mm on my Myford.
The mounting on the Myford carriage needs a round boss that matches the boss under the standard top slide assembly. I measured this as best I could, modelled it in Fusion and 3D printed a prototype.
The 3D model worked fine. With confidence restored in my ability to measure properly I turned up the boss in steel. All went well and the Turnado table mounted correctly and gripped very well on the lathe carriage. Here is a picture of the lower side of my finished assembly. Apologises for the pink 3D model – of late I have had a heavy demand from grandchildren for Barbie related models.
Having now played with the Turnado I can say that it is a lovely well thought out piece of engineering and works well. Using the hand tool is a delight and the accessories for profile turning will be indispensable.
Nice product Gary.
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