Pennington Single Slide

Dan to Mark

 

A little update on my rim lathe.

 

I changed from two Enco cross slide tables to one Palmgren table.  I use the boring bar for both inside and ouiside of the rim cutting.  

 

I couldn't adjust all the slop out of the Enco tables and still have them slide freely.  The Palmgren is a lot better made and a lot more expensive, but worth the cost for the accuracy and smoothness of action.  With the Encos I was getting grooves around the rim which were hard to sand out.

 

My next move will be to build a new lathe head like yours with a couple of pillow blocks, a shaft, and multiple pulleys driven by an electric motor.  And get rid of the Sears lathe before it dies.

 

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Mark to Dan

Great to hear from you. I love the simplicity. I get very rough cuts from my boring bar. Maybe because of the Enco slides. I have long wondered about the Palmgren slides because they look a lot like the Enco slides. Same factory working to different specs?

 

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Dan to Mark

I was getting roughness at end grain and chip out at the block joints because of the short end grain primarily with maple.  Softer woods seem to cut better.  I don't know yet if the Palmgren will do anything about that.  I installed it this week end and haven't cut an inside yet.  The outside cut is very smooth.