4 axis wood router from old lathe?

[Peeric]

Have been interested in a 4 axis router for some time, but not enough to actually start a build, and not interested in spending a big pile of money on it. Among the needs is a ~35" X-axis, but really only 8" on the Y and Z. I will be doing cylindrical stuff in other words, and only wood work. Will do all milling with the material on the 4th axis.

This idea hit me, why not use an old metal lathe as the base? Old metal lathes can be had for next to nothing, and they already have the the X, Z and 4th axis. If I just added the Y axis to the top slide of the lathe, I would be up and running way easier than starting something from scratch?

Has anyone seen or tried something similar before?

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[awerby]

It doesn't seem like a lathe is the right shape to be a router, unless you want a long skinny one. If you haven't bought one yet, I wouldn't suggest it. Look for a very heavy-duty table instead; I've heard of people making routers out of granite surface plates, which are at least the right shape and flat.

[wizard]

Have been interested in a 4 axis router for some time, but not enough to actually start a build, and not interested in spending a big pile of money on it. Among the needs is a ~35" X-axis, but really only 8" on the Y and Z. I will be doing cylindrical stuff in other words, and only wood work. Will do all milling with the material on the 4th axis.

If the only thing you expect to do is long cylindrical items, then there is possibility here.

This idea hit me, why not use an old metal lathe as the base? Old metal lathes can be had for next to nothing, and they already have the the X, Z and 4th axis.

Not all metal lathes have what you need arrangement wise. You would have to look for the "ideal" lathe.

If I just added the Y axis to the top slide of the lathe, I would be up and running way easier than starting something from scratch?

Has anyone seen or tried something similar before?

There are so many factors here that you really don't know how fast a conversion would be.

As far as being done before I do believe somebody has done something similar to do custom pool cues. YOU may not need to implement as many axises as you think depending upon what you are trying to achieve on the parts.

[thoffen]

I'm interested in this topic as pool cues is precisely what I want to build. I'm a newbie to all this, though. Out of curiosity, how would the machine be used to machine parts that aren't cylindrical? For example, if you converted a lathe to a 4-axis CNC for cues, that makes intuitive sense for machining inlay pockets. But for machining the inlays themselves.... I suppose one could build a jig that sits between centers and provides a flat surface to attach material to...even with a live center to take advantage of the 4th axis for certain applications.

[wizard]

I'm interested in this topic as pool cues is precisely what I want to build. I'm a newbie to all this, though. Out of curiosity, how would the machine be used to machine parts that aren't cylindrical? For example, if you converted a lathe to a 4-axis CNC for cues, that makes intuitive sense for machining inlay pockets. But for machining the inlays themselves.... I suppose one could build a jig that sits between centers and provides a flat surface to attach material to...even with a live center to take advantage of the 4th axis for certain applications.

For most people, starting out anyways, it probably makes more sense to build a conventional router with fourth axis support. That specifically due to the need to machine non cylindrical parts. At some point though a cue "lathe" makes sense. A lathe in this sense being a machine optimized for long thin parts such as cues. It doesn't have to be a lathe in the traditional sense, it could in fact be a CNC that sits on a bench or even bolted to a wall.

In any event back to getting started the big problem with pool cues is the implied length of the machine. It is a bit of a wast to make a wide machine when most of the work to be done is of the narrow variety. So you might end up with a 2 x 8' or 2 x 10' machine. I'm thinking an 8 foot work area would be the minimal length to allow for the rotary axis, center and waste stock.

In any event there are examples of cue lathe/router CNC's on the net. I suggest taking a look to get some ideas.

[thoffen]

For most people, starting out anyways, it probably makes more sense to build a conventional router with fourth axis support. That specifically due to the need to machine non cylindrical parts. At some point though a cue "lathe" makes sense. A lathe in this sense being a machine optimized for long thin parts such as cues. It doesn't have to be a lathe in the traditional sense, it could in fact be a CNC that sits on a bench or even bolted to a wall.

In any event back to getting started the big problem with pool cues is the implied length of the machine. It is a bit of a wast to make a wide machine when most of the work to be done is of the narrow variety. So you might end up with a 2 x 8' or 2 x 10' machine. I'm thinking an 8 foot work area would be the minimal length to allow for the rotary axis, center and waste stock.

In any event there are examples of cue lathe/router CNC's on the net. I suggest taking a look to get some ideas.

That's a huge footprint. No one really does one piece cues unless you're building house cues. So divided into butt and shaft standard is 29-30" sections. If all you were using the CNC for was points and inlays, you would only need maybe 14" on the long axis working area (but of course some overhang on either end... Most people do cue work on lathes with a big enough spindle bore to fit the cue through the headstock and a sliding tailstock to work between centers. Theoretically you could design a machine with the working area pretty small.

But of course you may also want to use the CNC to do all the cutting work. In which case you need all 30" and then some. For cutting tapers it really needs to be a late and not a regular 4th axis.

If I'm gonna get into this, I'm debating whether I should try to build something that can do everything (except finishing work, wraps) including live tooling. Or have a separate dedicated cue lathe for the big work and set up taper bars and have a less ambitious 4th axis build to do inlay work and maybe use it for some other things.

[BalloonEngineer]

Gary Campbell has built a very nice example of what you are thinking of

[awerby]

No, that's an actual CNC wood lathe. As I understand it, the Original Poster wanted to use the frame of a wood lathe to create a 4-axis router, That would involve substituting a rotary table for the lathe spindle, or at least using a servo or stepper to control it. And it would also require a rotary spindle mounted on an additional axis (Y) perpendicular to the long axis of the lathe (X) rather than the fixed tool a lathe uses, since the rotary axis doesn't go nearly as fast. It would be capable of cutting pockets or inlays into the side of the workpiece, rather than just creating a radially-symmetrical contour. Yes, something like that would be ideal for producing fancy pool cues.