MOWRER WW LATHE TOOLS: Adapting the micro rotary table to the watchmakers lathe

I recently ordered a 2 1/2" diameter rotary table off of Ebay. It wasn't terribly expensive (under $100 US) and when it arrived, the quality of function was reasonably good (finish was sub-par but I can live with that). There's a number of milling and drilling jobs I have lined up that I wanted to be able to perform on the Watchmakers Lathe. With the heavy duty cross slide, I've been finding that it is a much more vibration free platform for machining than the drill press-turned mill drill I've been using.
I was delighted with the easy fit on the heavy duty cross slide and am now happily using it for some operations with smooth and accurate results.
I'm going to have to make a rise block for the headstock to get full use of the unit for the future...
Cheers, Kevin

Micro rotary table adapted for Watchmakers lathe

IMPORTANT please read

Important Change Notice!

Hello friends and visitors. I am taking a temporary hiatus from offering the parts shown in this blog on shapeways. I have had many inquiries and a lot of effort has gone into preparing the parts for sale. Unfortunately, 3D printing of parts one at a time is not as cheap as mass market bulk castings.

There is not enough demand to have the parts bulk cast and doing so would also mean a change of material from the wonderful Bronze infused Stainless Steel.

The metal printed kits come in well under the cost of purchasing completed new parts from the likes of Levin and such but are significantly more expensive than the lower functionality antique items on Ebay.

I have found that the market is generally at the lower end of the spectrum.

I am presently reworking how I might be able to bring the costs down on the parts somewhat and will notify you through this posting when they are ready for kit purchase.

Thanks and cheers, Kevin

WELCOME

Hello Blog visitors and welcome to my blog about the adventures of creating high quality, new tools for the antique WW watchmakers lathe. Nearly a year ago I acquired an 8mm American Watch tool company lathe from a local antique store. It was not in the very best of shape but I am someone who loves to rescue machines of quality and bring them back into service. I am also an inventor and an artist and this beautiful little lathe captured my interest.

Once I'd managed to carefully bring it back to working condition, I decided I wanted to have certain functionalities for it to solve some of it's challenges in doing the kind of work I wanted to use it for. It worked so well for very small brass parts and removal of very small amounts but I wanted to do this kind of high accuracy work on some longer and more robust pieces of material.

What began as a project to make a superior steady rest has turned into many other tools adding various functions and abilities to the lathe.

The results are chronicled throughout this blog.

I hope you enjoy the process posted here.

Cheers and enjoy! Kevin Mowrer

MOWRER WW LATHE TOOLS

Adapting the micro rotary table to the watchmakers lathe

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