Hi Grant,

it took a good couple of hours because this was the first time I have set it up. I had to drill and tap a hole in the spindle adaptor that holds the tool post for a stabilising bar to be fitted and I also fitted a piece of angle bat to carry the tray in front of the mill table at the left hand end so that I can leave it fitted when I use the lathe on the mill. However I would reckon that it will take about 15-20 minutes in the future. The finish it produced was far better than any I would have got from using the manual lathe.

Andrew,the Rapid Turn is in a different league to the Duality. The notable difference being the motor size, wirh a 1 H.P. motor and a low and high belt position it should have plenty of grunt to tackle some of the larger jobs, though it has been bought mainly for making custom bolts and studs. The Duality didn't have the threading capability that this does.

Getting it up and running was not without problems,as already mentioned, the chuck came loose from the backplate while I was making the thingywatchamacallit. It took a while for it to dawn on me what was happening. I thought that it was some sort of low frequency chatter at first. I was able to get it tightened up without any problems but that sort of thing should have been checked before despatch.

Also the motor has been wired incorrectly and everything is running in reverse to what it should do, again an easy fix, just swap two wires over, but it should have been checked before despatch. Again it took a while to register with the grey matter that it was running the wrong way, short term I just went into the G-code and put in M-4 to get the correct rotational sense then when I had time I checked in the manual that comes with it and sure enough it confirmed my suspicions.

Apart from those niggles it is a great bit of kit and will prove worth while to me.

One thing I don,t like is the proximity to the front of the headstock casting of the two mounting slots in the baseplate. It is impossible to get an open jaw spanner onto the nuts on the Tee slot studs they are so close. I presume they are positioned here so that the attachment can be mounted as far back as possible on the mill table. This would be needed if you were doing any work that involved using a tailstock.

I will probably cut some extra holes in the baseplate and do away with the central hold down fitting because it is in direct alignment with the nose of the chuck and effectively steals 1" of throw.

I will post on progress when I get round to making some vernier timing sprockets for vintage motorcycles.

When I was playing with it making the thingywatchamacallit I didn't pay any attention to feeds and speeds, other than to go very conservatively with the DOC so that there was no chance of a stall out which used to happen regularly with the Duality.

P.S. I enjoy reading your gliding posts, I used to work for a drilling Manager that had a half share in a glider at Aboyne in Aberdeenshire, his partner in the share I believe was a british champion in aerobatics or long distance gliding. I marvelled at the distances that they used to achieve sometimes going as far south as Leicestershire on thermals only.

Another acquaintance used to fly gliders out of Millfield in Northumberland, he, like you used to fly the club tug aircraft, eventually this led to him obtaining a commercial pilots licence and he is now flying for one of the Major airlines.

My son is currently at Oxford Air Academy taking an ATPL. He is off to Phoenix in October for the flying part of the course. I have had to lend him the money to do it, hence me still working after retiring from the Oil Industry

BobHi Andrew,

I cannot for the life of me remember the surname of Martin who used to fly out of Millfield. All I know is that he graduated from Pattern Flying Model Aircraft (at which he was excellent) to flying gliders from Millburn and eventually building enough hours to enable him to get a licence to fly the Tug. From there he progressed to commercial aviation. He would have been in his early thirties at the time he was flying the Tug at Millfield shortish medium build with dark hair.

I think he was a maintenance Engineering Manager for a Pharmaceutical company based in Morpeth. I,m not surprised you got a rough tow out of Millfield if the prevailing wind is anywhere out of the west you must get an awful lot of turbulence in the lee of the Cheviot hills.

Going back to the Rapid Turn, it doesn't have a switch but you have to instal a Rapid Change kit. Basically it's a JB that takes the power wires from the VFD and they terminate at a socket. You remove the JB from the spindle motor and replace it with a plug. The rapid turn also has a similar plug. There is no switch, instead you have to change the settings for whatever is installed after shaping the plugs over, all very simple in the set up screen.