New motor and new tools for the Rhino/Coronet lathe

There was nothing essentially wrong with the old motor on my lathe, except it was only 750W and 1500rpm. Which exactly mirrored the stock 3-phase that was originally on it. But with modern tooling constantly demanding higher speeds and higher chip-loads, it was time for a bit of... more oomph and more speed.

For some reason the 3-phase motor that was on there, was mounted with this spacer plate, so I took the liberty of using it as a drill-jig.

*drumroll*
And here we go: 2.2kW (or 3hp for you non-metric types) of 2800rpm, single-phase goodness. And I really have to work out how to wire in a reversing switch, as that will make screwcutting a lot less tedious.

The second part of the story is the thing with tooling. Normally you would expect people to step up their game from CCMT to TCMT tooling. I went the other way. The former Matra with its geared head, had a better power-factor, which allowed me to run TCMT tooling and get decent finish on my parts. With this lathe being belt driven that's simply not gonna happen. So after some consultation with my local lathe tool rep (and cross-checking with some catalogues), I settled for some CCMT09 tooling, which with its smaller tip-radius decreases the load. In combination with the higher spindle speed, this nets mirror-finish results (at last).

With VCMT-tooling I still have some vibration issues, which I (by now) tracked down to a slightly loose motor and a belt that's a bit jumpy. 

Once I have fully sorted the vibration issues, I have some very, very high expectations for the finish quality that I can achieve with this lathe. I suppose some rubber machine-feet and a new (slightly longer) belt are in the cards to tackle this issue.