Boring bars on a lathe

[littlerob]

Ok we have all had this problem I think. Too many bars...not enough clearance.

IE your chuck is 12" dia' but the linear distance between tool station center lines is 5.5", how do you utilize all your tool stations without a Y axis? And more specifically without a crash obviously.

Say for example your first op is all turning work and your second op is all ID work, (yeah, yeah split it up I know), but what if there isn't an option?

Worst case scenario, you need to use all 12 or whatever stations with bars sticking out?

We all deal with this regularly, well maybe not all, but I am just wondering if someone has figured a sinfully clever way to deal with it. And I mean sinfully, one of those things you don't really tell anyone.

I simply posted to start a dialog about it.

[HuFlungDung]

I've got a 16 inch turret (an older smaller way of doing things) on a 20" swing lathe with a 12" chuck.

I suppose the larger the diameter of your turret, the better off you would be. But in practical terms, I can use maybe one bar in every adjacent tool position (or skip one), then use all turning tools in the other half of the turret. This would depend if the bars have to clear merely the jaws, or the entire chuck, as well. Spreading the bars out equally around the turret would actually decrease the usable tool slots in most instances.

Normally, I'd try to use bars that are nearly the same length if possible, as this helps eliminate one source of interference between bar lengths.