Kaiser Piccolo Howto

November 1, 2024 in library

This post shows the kind of works that can be done with a Kaiser Piccolo boring head. It includes the usual boring work but also the facing work usind the automatic travel of the head and an example of peg turning. The usual boring head tooling is also reviewed.

Kaiser Piccolo Boring Head Repair

October 14, 2024 in projects

The Kaiser Piccolo is an exquisitely made mid sized boring head with boring and automatic facing functions. I got a ISO30 one in a very nice condition together with a bunch of tooling. When tested it performed very fine but I couldn’t switch easily between facing and boring (marked as P and A in the head, maybe for the french «planage» and «alésage»). It needs to be serviced to cope with this jam.

Isoma centering microscope tail

May 12, 2017 in projects

Some time ago I bougth an Isoma centering microscope with ans SK40 adaptor. However I have no SK40 machine at all. During the last days I have been turning a cylindric tail which let me to use the microscope in the lathe as well as in the milling machine. The part was dimensioned from an original one. It is a M15x0.75 threaded end with two main features: A 16mm bushing guide that assures concentricity, and A mating ring that assures perpendicularity.

Unusual square for the tool grinder

September 4, 2016 in projects

One of the jobs done this summer is a special square intended to facilitate the alignment of the grinder axis. I own a Klaiber WSII tool grinder. This grinder has a head with several degrees of freedom and aligning it to the table is not easy given the poor quality of the head scales. Thus, I decided to build a particular square that fits in the head nose and offers a reference plane to test with the indicator or the protractor, for instance.

Refurbishing the Boley Leinen lever tailstock (I)

September 4, 2016 in projects

The tailstock Some time ago I bought an old series Boley Leinen lever tailstock to be fitted to my lathe. This is the tailstock: It is of the old type because it uses a split casting to lock the barrel as you can see in the picture. Leinen buid two flavors of this tailstock: one with a barrel that takes 363E collets (the 25mm collets) and other that takes the 323E collets (15mm collets).

Looking for these beautiful Leinen tailstocks

August 31, 2015 in tools

I was obsessed with those beautiful optional tailstocks built by Leinen that appear in the lathe parts catalog. An intense surveillance in ebay has given some partial results. The first attempt achieved this nice capstan-handle tailstock that admits the 25 mm 363E collets: However, although the tailstock is in pretty good condition (just cosmetic issues) it is not appropiate to the Leinen LZ4SB dimensions. It shares the 130mm center height but the bed dimensions are not the same.

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