Major Assets
For a majority of our kits, the necessary assets are limited to:

• A centre lathe with at least 3½”cetre height (7” swing) and 13” between centres. A screw cutting train is essential for some kits.
  
• A drill press of at least ½” capacity (probably > ½ hp)
  
• A vertical slide. Most of the designs were conceived in the days before low cost vertical milling machines and assume you will work from a vertical slide, bolted to the cross slide. If you have a miller in your workshop, your progress will be at a much faster pace. Indeed a few of the kits, such as the Large Boring Head and the Machin Screw Cutting Gearbox, do require a miller. If you're ready for a miller at the very least look for 1 hp, 14” of X-travel and a bottom speed below 100 rpm.

Although many of the kits appear to be biased towards Myford lathes, a majority of the designs can be readily adapted to suit other equipment including Southbend, Atlas, Boxford, Harrison, Colchester and Far Eastern imports. If you are contemplating adapting one of the designs, please write to us with your thoughts and questions. We are usually happy to sell a set of drawings and instruction on the understanding that this cost will be rebated against your ultimate purchase of the relevant kit. Indeed, if your adaptation is for another popular lathe, we’d be delighted to find out what was involved so that we can pass it on!

Other Workshop Basics
Whilst you will be creating some of the most valuable attachment in the world, there are still a number of standard items that you will require to complete most kits. Leaving aside the 6” ruler, scriber and vice, you’ll probably need to have:

• External Micrometers and an Internal/External Vernier
  The best you can afford or find. You should be able to determine down to 0.00025” for dimensions under an inch and 0.001” above an inch.
• DTI & DGI with Stand(s)
  Again highest quality pays. Try for a Dial Gauge Indicator with at least ¼” of travel and resolution of 0.0005”. Go to town on a Dial Test Indicator; ours has a total travel of 0.009”and resolves to 0.00005”. Stands can be bought or made and, whilst they need a truly flat base, other features are not so critical. Our opinion only here but we find a magnetic stand with a solid post to be infinitely more believable than the ones with a flexible or “snake” shaft.
• Face Plate (7” min.), 3-Jaw (4” min.) and 4-Jaw (6” min.) Chucks
  Good old brands undoubtedly feel better but Polish and Czech ones are built and inspected just the same. Regularly check the run-out of your 3-jaw. If your 3-jaw is backplate mounted, consider our Adjustable Backplate kit.
• Surface Plate
  Perhaps not essential for every kit but sooner or later you’ll need a standard surface. If you have a flat bed lathe, you may get away with using it as a surface plate. Otherwise, a piece of plate glass or a second hand or imported iron table are equally good. 10” x 12” should do it.
• Taps, Dies, Reamers & Drills
  You’ll need taper taps for BA (8,6,4 & 2), BSF (1/4, 5/16 & 3/8), BSW (5/16 & 3/8) and an ME tap and die for ¼” x 40tpi. You’ll need split ring dies for the larger sizes only (2BA to 3/8” BSW). If you’re bias towards Metric and UNF/UNC, its fine to substitute these in place of the imperial ones. Buy Number drills or Metric equivalents to support all of you taps. If you can beg or steal a set of spiral reamers from 1/8” to ½” by 16ths, many of the fine boring exercises will disappear.