My new cue lathe

[DanO]

Decided to build myself a 2nd lathe. Below was my criteria going in. Mission accomplished.

Must be portable. Tired of going to my basement in the summer to do a tip when it’s a beautiful day outside.

Standing height 45”. I have two Lyon work tables. One inside and one outside. Basically wanted to make the lathe a nice working height for any table.

Taig components. I like my Cuesmith so why reinvent the wheel.

Headstock and motor adjustable along entire lathe bed. The motor is mounted independent of the headstock but moves with it. I didn’t want to put a large side load hanging off the headstock. The motor is mounted to the underside linear bearing saddle. The saddle is mounted on four nylon sliders. Two running in the bottom grooves and one on each side.

Work light. The LED light is also mounted to the linear saddle. The switch is mounted under the saddle. The entire assembly travels with the motor and headstock.

Be capable of turning square stock round. Large variable speed motor. High torque pulleys and belt. Also bought Chris’s long carriage rack so I can use my carriage drive from my Cuesmith.

 

[sileighty_guru]

Looks great! I know you put twice the time into the drafting than the assembly Things always seem to go together better when they are well thought out in advance. Kudos!

 

[GBCues]

Nice - I'm like you, I like to draw things up first because you have to mentally put everything together and it makes for fewer "Oops, I didn't think about that, how am I going to . . . " later on.
I like the use of the 8020 linear bearing underneath to support the motor - pretty slick.
:thumbup:
Gary

 

[whammo57]

very nice


Kim

 

[Mcues]

Looks good.


Mario

 

[conetip]

I like your take on a Cue lathe. Well done and thanks for sharing your project.
Neil

 

[CamposCues]

Nice work as usual Dan!

 

[rhinobywilhite]

nice design and build. Is it in use now? If so, what would you change or is it just right?

 

[DanO]

I selecting components then modeled them so I could play with the puzzle. 8020 has a lot of stock components but I still needed quite a bit of custom machining to get what I wanted.

One thing I would change is going with a hard anodized (gray) dovetail instead of the black anodized. I'm going to check into having it stripped and recoated. Already has marks.

Only other thing would be to spring for a larger thru bore headstock. It would be more versatile with the larger headstock. I did buy a large bore 3-jaw and tooled a bearing holder for it though.

If I need to work on a butt cap or joint collar I don't plan on doing it at a tournament or in my garage so this is fine for what I built it for. I already have a Cuesmith Deluxe so this is just my secondary.

 

[conetip]

Hard anodising is what you really want and sealed. Unsealed hard anodised is great for when you are gluing parts together.
Neil

 

[DanO]

For those of you that are asking, I'm over 1K in purchased components. That's not counting the machining of the extrusion(s), dovetail, custom motor mount plate, and bearing holders.

I didn't save anything over what is already available out there. Just my twist on things to fill what I wanted.