A Quick Change Tool Post

My parents bought me a quick change tool post for Christmas.

As you may have gathered from the picture, its made in China.  Nonetheless, it seems like a decent tool post.  Close tolerances and nice ground surfaces leave me impressed.  

The tool post came with a rectangular slab of steel 1/2 an inch thick.  You machine the T nut for the lathe.  That was an interesting process.  I reinforced a piece of angle iron, secured it in the groove, used a fly cutter to mill it vertical, mounted the steel blank on this.  An end mill went into the chuck.  With this setup, I milled the T-nut down to size.  More on that later.  I have some videos that will go up on my youtube channel.

Here you see the other holders that came with it.  From left to right:  A 5/8" boring bar holder, a knurling tool (Its also serving to hold my dial indicator), my threading tool holder, a cut-off tool holder, and my right-hand tool holder.  The left-hand bit is in the mounted holder.

The beauty of these tool posts is that the nut on each holder keeps the position of the bit.  To change bits, you just turn the handle, remove the current tool, and slide the new one on.  Once you've set all the proper heights once, its done.  Changing tools no longer takes time.  The height is set.

This tool post allows me to take advantage of brief periods of time.  I can go out to the garage after school, spend 45 minutes, and actually accomplish something because of the time it saves.