Mini lathe carriage stop

[threesixesinarow]

This is a bed stop I made to simplify turning multiples on my 7x10. It’s kind of similar to the old South Bend four position units but a lot smaller and with two additional stops.

It indexes with a spring loaded ball, and the stop screws lock in place with jam nuts. The barrel is inside the bed ways in order to use the corner of the carriage wing to clear adjacent stop screws.

The extra stops aren’t that useful and fewer of them would allow freer choice of barrel placement. The narrow mini lathe wings limit the maximum difference between stops to about only 5/8” - improvised spacers help extend this, but the small size of most stuff I use it for hasn’t prompted me to make a more permanent or consistent extension.

I milled and shaped the body from some scrap 3/4” steel. The barrel is 1” diameter and about 1-1/2” long, and the knurled take-up ring is 1-3/16”. The stop screws are 6-32.