Large Lathe

Been surfing for articles on CNC while planning the conversion of my new Mill over to computer control. Ran into this one about a company that built a large metal lathe -- I mean LARGE! From Manufacturing Center:

'Monster' Lathe Built From WWII Machines
To accomplish some jobs, more creativity than normal is needed. In this case, a Rochester, NY shop created a new lathe with a 100' bed from 60-year old parts.

Machine Tool Research, Inc. (MTR), a special machinery builder and rebuilder, has taken TV�s "Monster Garage" theme to a new, larger scale. It created a monster lathe to assist a supplier of long, ship shafts for the U.S. Navy.

A supplier of ship shafts to the U.S. government turned to MTR to work with them to prepare a lathe to meet both a tight timetable and budget.

MTR developed the concept of a "Monster Garage" approach to lathes by combining the good elements of several machines to create a machine capable of better performance than any of the original lathes.

"Our customer presented a difficult challenge that meant all disciplines from engineering to assembly had to work concurrently to meet the tight schedule with a low budget," says John Blawski, executive vice president of MTR.

Niles Lathes

MTR took two World War II vintage Niles lathes and creatively combined bed sections to create a nearly 100' bed to support the ship shafts. While two beds had decent hard ways, the third bed had badly worn ways, which MTR matched and replaced. All three beds were machined to match on all guide surfaces for tailstock and carriage, including rack and feedback mountings, on MTR�s CNC planer mill.

The headstock and tailstock came from a scrapped Farrel lathe. These elements were old and had been abused in a steel plant, but MTR was able to rebuild and make them fit the new bed. The spindle runout is very important on ship shafts, and MTR was able to adjust the head to 0.0002" TIR, while the tailstock needed new bearings to achieve this runout.

They have a picture of this puppy. Note the guy on the platform and the rails along the floor under the platform -- that entire structure is the cross-slide and toolpost. The guy rides along as the toolpost travels down the stock. That is big!