On 06/13/2013 03:10 AM, Gregg Eshelman wrote: > Word to the wise, unless you own a junkyard full of many sizes of LeBlond > lathes or live somewhere you can't kick a clod of dirt without finding an old > LeBlond, don't ever buy a LeBlond lathe that doesn't have 100% of its parts! > Or at least parts that aren't easily replicated....
Your cautionary LeBlond Tale of Terror argues in favor of converting to CNC instead of restoring old machinery. If you have 90% of a functioning lathe, it's a lot easier to strip out the 40% that you don't need for CNC rather than try to find or fabricate the missing or damaged 10%... and your efforts will be rewarded with a more capable CNC machine. I was getting some rare exercise yesterday with a friend, a tool and die maker who is now the owner of an industrial machine design and fabrication shop (lots of machine vision and robots). I mentioned the controversy over restoring classic old machining tools versus converting them to CNC. He said, "It's a lathe. It wants to turn parts and make chips, not sit in a museum and look pretty." :-) I really can see both sides, but I tend to agree with my friend's assessment. The restoration of an old lathe is cool. Extending the useful life and capability of an old lathe by adding CNC is cooler. If the aesthetics of the CNC conversion offend you, then here's a challenge. Hide the motors and stuff on the inside so your rockin' new CNC machine still looks like something from the 1940s with a small bundle of cables discretely exiting in the back along the floor. The added difficulty of the aesthetically pleasing CNC conversion would *still* be a lot easier than finding or making the missing original parts! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows: Build for Windows Store. http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
