Bill,

Modify the large?  Certainly not!  All you need is to mount the tailstock
somewhere off the bed of the lathe!
(And, it doesn’t have to be the original tailstock, just a “poppet” with a dead
center.)

I saw my late father do this!  He wanted to re-machine the propellor end of the
bronze prop shaft of his cabin cruiser due to damage from a previous owner not
replacing the skeg bearing.

He lined up his small metal lathe with his wood lathe using the “taut wire”
method.  He had the end he wanted to machine driven by the headstock of the
metal lathe, so within range of the carriage. The other “inboard” end  of The
prop shaft was on the tailstock of the wood lathe. He’d unbolted and removed the
headstock of the wood lathe.

Neither lathe was permanently modified in any way.

Pop had been a WW2 Seabee...he was the embodiment of the Seabee motto “Can Do!”

The “taut wire” method is well known to machinists and millwright.  Jim The Old
Millrat mentioned it occasionally. You can look it up.

John Ruth



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