Having retro fitted an old Deford Orac lathe I would like to complete the project with a tool turret/changer. Denford made such items, but from looking at some blogs they are difficult to control via Mach.

It then occerred to me that a tool turret is the same as a rotary table, so I am thinking of using a small 4" rotary table powerd by stepper motor set in vertical position on the cross slide, so both centre's match. Then fitting an adapter plate to take turning tools and chucks for centre dills etc, and easly controled as third axsis.

Has anyone been down this route, or has any experiance with turrets on small lathes? or can offer some advice

Thanks

Mike

A rotary table typically has backlash. You need some way to lock and unlock the table. If you can sort out locking and unlocking, then you can easily sort out the indexing.

Lathe turrets typically use hirth couplings to index and lock the tool in position. They are basically two interlocking face gears. There is a lot of torque on a turret when a tool is in a heavy cut. You have to have something that will be able to withstand this torque and not move at all. If you can find a rotary table with a hirth coupling, it might work.