Which QCTP for Sherline lathe

[Hal]

I picked up a Sherline lathe over the weekend and was wonder which QCTP to get.

The steel Sherline tool post is about 2 1/2 the cost of the aluminum A2Z brand.

Do the aluminum tool post hold theit zero ??

Can anyone suggest some good web sites to check out.

Thank You

Hal

 

[shred]

I had an A2Z on my Taig and 6" Atlas. It worked pretty well in both places, though I've not got much to compare it to on those.

 

[ChooChooMike]

Here's the link the the A2Z QCTP :

http://www.a2zcnc.com/machinetools.asp

More details on the Sherline version

Also available from Little Machine Ship

The other QCTP vendor is TS Engineering

Here's a review of TS Engineering's version. The review also states the TS Engineering is no longer makng QCTP's, but seemed to be available on their site.

I own both of them and they're pretty much identical.

The both suffer from a minor flaw if you're using the 1/4" tool bits like I tend to do. You can't raise the 1/4" tool bit high enough to align with the center line of the Sherline spindle. It's not a fatal flaw, but more of a nuisance solved by putting a piece of shim stock underneath the tool bit. e.g. use another 1/4" tool bit as a shim.

The QCTP works pretty well for me. There's reports of the QCTP body twisting a bit under heavy cutting loads. Here's a more info.

QCTP (Quick Change Toolpost) Base mod from Dave Hylands plus he's got some other Sherline goodies/mods to choose from. Near the top of my list is to make this base.

There's another QCTP base mod out there somewhere that puts a little concave shape on the bottom of the QCTP base that improves it's fit to the Sherline cross-slide. YMMV Can't recall the link at the moment.

Hope all those links help !!

Mike

 

[Tin Falcon]

I Have an A2Z on my 7 x lathe. I used to have an Aloris AXA mounted. While the Aloris is certainly a superior tool IMHO the A2Z works well on a small lathe and holds a smaller better sized parting tool.

Phase II hobby tp is discontinued and there mirco is pricey.
Tin

 

[GrahamC]

Mike's post above has some very good info.

I had an A2Z QCTP on my Taig and was very pleased with it. However, I did find that it did twist and turn unexpectedly from time to time which I found rather frustrating. I ran across Walter Anderson's web page that described his modifications (refered to in Mike's posting and here again for completeness)

http://www.walteranderson.us/hobbies/metalworking/microlathe/qctp/index.html

Once I made the change I never had the QCTP twist or turn again (unless I wanted it to). Walter's mod is highly recommended.

I have only praise for the A2Z QCTP. It's aluminum construction seems to have held out well over the past 4 years and for a time I even used it on my much larger 10x22 lathe.

If I was to do it over again, I would very seriously consider the QCTP sold by Little Machine shop as the "hobby"

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3444

Very much in size and shape as the A2Z but made of steel versus aluminum. I would think that as such it might be a bit more robust over the long term.

cheers, Graham