Well, being that the topic, the question of whether making T slots on the X 2, is very resolved, I promise not to call the Topic Cops on you. lol
I will say that when it comes to hand cranking, if I don't absolutely have to, I'll go for power feed most of the time. I honestly don't like the CCW rotation on the new handwheel needed to advance the lathe saddle, so may someday add some gearing to reverse the handwheel so it goes CW. Just makes more sense to me.
When I figure out how I would want to do it, I may add power to the leadscrew, and I have similar inclinations on my Y axis mill crank. I've even entertained the notion of a power feed on my rotary table.
But that would see very little use, for sure. The Y axis on the mill needs it the most. That gets tiresome. Had they exposed the column end of the Y axis screw I might have figured out a way by now. But adding it on the handhweel end would kind of be in the way.
I did encounter something last night on the lathe that could be mentioned in regard to why the X2 is able to mill the T slots without much difficulty. Even though it is a lot of cutting on both sides and top of the T slot cutter, it is not all that big in diameter. I was truing up an aluminum round of 4.5" diameter on the lathe. That is the largest project diameter I've mounted on it. Really only do-able because I added over an inch of crossslide travel recently.
Out at that diameter, getting the right combination of speed and depth of feed was tricky. Trying to go too fast caused chatter, and trying to go what would normally have been a simple to cut 0.010" depth also caused chatter and a tendency to stall the lathe, due to the low speed, flex in the QC tool post hanging out that far, and lack of slow speed torque on this lathe's stock motor. I had to limit passes to about 0.003" to get a smooth finish, even with a brand new indexable cutter mounted, and frequent removal of built up edge. Apparently the surface speed at that diameter even at the lathe's lowest effective speed creates too much loading force to go any deeper.
So it seems to me that even though a T slot cutter seems to be moving a lot of metal, it works a lot better than even a single point tool, WHEN that tool is way out on a large diameter driven by a similar motor. Interesting.
