Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Quick change tool post?

Any recommendations for a 9" Logan 400?

You'll want an AXA size. Then decide if you want piston or wedge. Piston cheaper, wedge may hold more securely/repeatably. Phase II is pretty good for import or you can pay 4x more for an Aloris. Bostar imports seem to get decent reviews too. I think they are probably all made in the same place.

For 9" swing the AXA is the prescribed holder. I have had excellent service from the wedge model found here.

Shars Tools

AXA set details

Look for used Aloris or Dorian AXA q/c toolpost and holders.

Thanks for the replies. I need to get off the dime and pick one up.

I also see they will take 3/8" tool stock which is good because I have boxes of the stuff.

That is one thing you will kick yourself for not doing years ago.

What's your guy's opinions on carbide insert tooling?

I learned everything old school from my Grandfather. A big part of that was grinding your own tools from blanks, including carbide, but the inserts are brazed on. I don't even know if they had indexable bits in his day - he never mentioned it.

I can see where they'd come in handy though - particularly doing threading work. If the tool chipped, you could just swap it out and keep on going.

Grind your own cutters from HSS or brazed carbide.

Both hss and carbide have their uses. A lot depends on what you are working with at the moment. A good, sharp hss bit will many times give you a superior finish on materials carbide won't, and vise versa.

Check out some of the machining sites for really helpful answers as I am far from an expert on any of this. I find The Hobby Machinist to be really good and The Home Shop Machinist has some great guys also.

Bob

Try PracticalMachinist.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/search.php?searchid=9586527

As others have said, the AXA size is what you'll need. I ponied up for an Aloris, as I try to keep my money here in the US whenever possible. If budget is an issue, watch for used USA made on the on line auctions. Once you start using one, you'll kick your own ass for not doing it sooner!

Jeff

Thanks again. I'm putting it on my Christmas list so my wife stops pestering me.

On a different note, speaking of my Grandfather, I was organizing pics and videos and ran across this one that might interest the machinist types on here.

During WW II he built track rollers for the LVT type amphibious vehicles. The stock was thick walled pipe I think about 4” in diameter and about 20 feet long. They would pick it up with trucks at a rail yard about 15 miles from his shop, drag the pipe into the shop with horses, then take the finished rollers back to the rail yard and pick up[ another load of stock. The finished rollers got sent somewhere in Florida for assembly. His shop ran 24/7 for quite a few years and employed half the town. My Grandfather never drank, but he told me when the Japanese surrendered, he went to the back of the shop, killed the power, and the whole shop went to the bar across the road and they all got drunk.

My 12" Logan came with a Swiss MultiFix tool post, which is excellent. My big machine has an Aloris C and it's very solid and repeatable.

Sharp HSS is good stuff but sharp carbide inserts are pretty awesome. Most inserts you'd buy are designed to take a heavy cut (in gunsmithing terms especially) and break the resulting chip. They are for production. May I suggest the very sharp CCGT inserts. They are designed for aluminum and plastic at which they excel, but for light finish cuts in steel, they are superb and you can really sneak up on a dimension, which can be tricky or impossible with the duller production carbide inserts.... they want to take a CUT and will do a skim/grab/skim thing on a very light cut that will make you pull your hair out. The CCGT's don't do that. You can skim a half-thou or less if your machine will do it.

A 10-pack of CCGT's and a holder might be $200 for the good stuff. You'll thank me later.

For the speeds your machine turns, hss is the answer. Learn to grind your own and you can get beautiful surface finish at slower speeds. Carbide on a less rigid machine or when slow or stopping is an expensive lesson.

I have used Aloris tool posts since I started as an aprentice in the early 1970's, both the piston and the wedge style. In the years since I have used Dorion and Phase III and found both to be well made and well suited. For a home shop or casual user any of these would be satisfactory. Check the classified ads on some of the websites devoted to home shop machining, they can be good sources of equipment at favorable prices that has been well taken care of.

Carbide is great for very rigid high hp lathes and maximizing feeds and speeds for production work and/or for rough high alloy steels and exotic materials.

For one off jobs on older machines and non wonder metals, HSS is your best bet.

I'm partial to the A.R. Warner HSS cutting tools for my Craftsman/Atlas lathe. It's way to flimsy and underpowered to benefit from carbide cutters. As others have pointed out. Nice thing about the ARW tools is, the convenience of replaceable cutters, with the user friendliness of HSS.

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/brands.php?brand=A+R+Warner

Jeff