Patent Application
20080127789
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to woodturning lathes, and more particularly, to an improved tailstock of a woodturning lathe.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional woodturning lathe typically includes a lathe bed whereon a headstock and a tailstock are aligned coaxially, and a carriage is arranged between the-headstock and tailstock.
In such a conventional woodturning lathe, a live center is settled on the headstock and a dead center is settled on the tailstock for cooperatively supporting a workpiece at its axis to facilitate processing operations against the workpiece such as turning, cutting, knurling or parting off by a tool assembled on the carriage. Alternatively, the tailstock can be assembled with a drilling tool to realize a central-hole drilling operation. However, according to foresaid structure, since the live center of the tailstock and the dead center of the headstock are aligned coaxially and the headstock is incompetent to provide some specific feed travels because it is immovably fixed on the lathe bed, such a conventional woodturning lathe is handicapped by not workable for threading, grooving an index plate, internal trimming or so forth.
The present invention has been accomplished under the circumstances in view.
It is one object of the present invention to provide a tailstock that can be operated to move along the X and Y axes of the lathe. When moving along the Y axis, the tailstock performs significant displacement relative to the headstock; while moving along the X axis, the tailstock can bring the live center thereof to positions aligned with or divergent from the axis of the dead head of the headstock.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tailstock that comprises an edge case whereon a tool, a center, a workpiece fastener or the like can be mounted.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a tailstock that can provide a special feed travel for spiral milling and thereby a woodturning lathe can perform external threading and internal threading operation.
To achieve these and other objects of the present invention, the tailstock of a woodturning lathe comprises: an axial block settled on the lathe bed which can be axially moved and positioned along the lathe bed, a radial block including a stationary seat fixedly fastened to the axial block and a sliding seat which can be moved and positioned against the stationary seat, a tailstock body fixedly fastened with the sliding seat, a first handwheel for controlling a first lead screw which is piercing through the tailstock body to rotate, wherein as the first lead screw is rotated, a linear movement of the edge case, spacer ring seat, spacer ring, second lead screw, shaft and work piece fastener which are connectedly assembled can be conducted, and a second handwheel for controlling the shaft and a second lead screw to rotate, wherein as the second lead screw is rotated, the workpiece fastener is propelled to perform a spiral movement in accordance with the threads of the second lead screw.
The invention as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
As can be seen in the
Further, the axial block 10 has a positioning key 11 extended from the bottom thereof slidably combined with a recessed runner 5 provided on the lathe bed 1. Between the axial block 10 and lathe bed 1, a positioning assembly 12 is further provided which contains a movable positioning rod 121 provided vertically through the axial block 10 and a lever 123 for operating the positioning rod 121 to move vertically wherein the lever 123 is passing horizontally through the axial block 10 and the head portion of the positioning rod 121 while the threaded bottom portion of the positioning rod 121 is extending into the lathe bed 1 and secured with a positioning plate 122. Meantime, the head portion of the positioning rod 121 includes a radial round-sectioned lever hole 124 for accommodating an elliptic-sectioned combining portion 125 of said lever 123. Thus, when the lever 123 is pulled, the elliptic-sectioned combining portion 125 thereof can rotate eccentrically to vertically shift the positioning rod 121 to a small extent. According to
Moreover, the radial block 20 comprises a stationary seat 21 and a sliding seat 22 wherein the stationary seat 21 is fixedly mounted on the top of the axial block 10; slidably combined with the sliding seat 22 by means of a sliding rail structure 23; and the sliding seat 22 is with the top surface fixedly attached to the tailstock body 30. Further, said sliding seat 22 can be operated to slide against the stationary seat 21 by means of an adjuster 24 which comprises a through hole 241 provided on the stationary seat 21, a displacement component 242 positioned in the through hole 241 and fixed to the sliding seat 22, a lead screw 243 rotatably arranged through the stationary seat 21 and held by the displacement component 242 by thread means, and an adjusting wheel 244 fixed at one end of the lead screw 243. Thereby, through the adjusting wheel 244 the displacement component 242 can be operated to linearly move within the through hole 241, and therefore the siding seat 22 can be pushed to move along an X axis as depicted in
Furthermore, an axle alignment apparatus 25 is provided about the stationary seat 21 and sliding seat 22 for facilitating promptly aligning the axle centers of the tailstock body 30 and headstock 2. Said axle alignment apparatus 25 comprises a first positioning hole 251 provided on the stationary seat 21, a second positioning hole 252 provided on the sliding seat 22 and a pin 253 for being lodged successively into said positioning holes 251, 252. When the positioning holes 251, 252 are vertically aligned, it signifies that the axle centers of the tailstock body 30 and headstock 2 are aligned mutually coaxially. At this point, the stationary seat 21 and sliding seat 22 can be secured at the aligned position by the pin 253 lodged therein.
In
Further, a shaft 45 is pierced through the first lead screw 41 with a first end 451 thereof jutting out of the first end 31 of the tailstock body 30 and the first handwheel 42 to be fixed to a second handwheel 46, and with a second end 452 jutting out of the first lead screw 41 to be fixed with a first end 471 of a second lead screw 47.
Moreover, the second end 436 of the edge case 43 is coupled with a spacer ring seat 441 by the external threads thereof and the second end 472 of the second lead screw 47 is jutting out of the pacer ring seat 441 to be connected with a spacer ring 442, which is positioned at the extremity of the pacer ring seat 441 by means of a plurality of fasteners 443, and to be further fastened with a workpiece fastener 50 via a fastening component 52 for carrying a tool (not shown).
Furthermore, an edge case positioner 60 is provided radially in the tailstock body 30 which can be pushed inward the tailstock body 30 to press tightly the edge case 43 so that the tailstock body 30 can be retained at a preset position from leaving.
According to
According to
Successively, if said radial block 20 is pushed to move along the X axis, the center of the tailstock body 30 can be positioned divergently from the axle of the headstock 2. Thus, by the co-ordination between the operation of the tool installed on the headstock 2 and spiral travel of the workpiece fastened on the tailstock 3, the woodturning lathe can realize the thread processing operation such as internal threading or external threading.
As to foresaid thread processing operation, when the workpiece to be processed is propelled spirally in accordance with the threads of the second lead screw 47, a threading tool equipped on the headstock 2 can make threads on the workpiece corresponding to those of the second lead screw 47. In other words, it is possible for the lathe to make different types of threads by implementing diverse second lead screws 47 with different types of threads.
As shown in
Although a particular embodiment of the invention has been described in detail for purposes of illustration, it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that numerous variations will be possible to the disclosed embodiments without going outside the scope of the invention as disclosed in the claims.
