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#55806
david pierce
Participant

    Bernie,
    I have a Levin 3 way crosslide mounted to my Boley and it works fine. As far as I know any crosslide made for a WW 8mm lathe should fit any of them. What will not work is trying to mix Geneva accessories with WW accessories. Also, for clock parts your friend is correct. A Geneva style lathe is too small for a heavier duty application. The Taig or any instrument size lathe is a much more robust and powerful machine and will work better on the larger clock size parts. The ER-16 collets can grip harder and cover a larger range of sizes for each collet. An example would be drilling a hole in a piece of brass for a clock bushing. The Taig will drill right through the brass without having to be feathered or having the lathe stall out. This type of job would be too much for a Geneva 6mm or 8mm lathe. It is a matter of fitting the machine to the task at hand. If a watch pivot is off center by .001 inches, that represents 25% of the pivot diameter, which would cause the staff to wobble and affect the operation of the watch . If a clock pivot is off center by .001 inches it probably will not be noticed and more than likely not affect the performance of the clock. For a watch precision is the most important consideration and power is not a major consideration This brings the decision down to how the cutting tool is going to be fixtured. I cannot in my wildest thoughts imagine using a graver with a Taig lathe. If that is an extremely important consideration then the 8mm WW machine would be the machine of choice. This however means that you will not have as much spindle torque available to turn and drill your parts.
    Jan uses a Taig for clock parts and maybe he can throw in some thoughts on this matter. It sounds to me like $230.00 for the Taig is a good deal; expecially if it comes with the motor. It will definately be able to blast through some clock parts.
    david