Several years ago I saw a retrofit Harding manual at the Fagor distributor
in Chicago. They had left the z slide as is and added a ball screw behind
the bed. For the x axis they had removed the slide and turret and
fitted a long bar (~14") to the dovetail. They had machined a slot in
the top of this bar that matched the t-slots on the Hardinge turret and
could line up several standard Hardinge tool holders. It looked awkward
with the bar hanging over the hardinge ways but whenever a tool was
used, most of the cutting load was near the center of the original dovetail.

It was not as nice as a real Hardinge CHNC with auto turret but not bad.

Ray

From: jvicars@...
Subject: Taig as XZ lathe slide

<s>How easy would it be to remove the Z and use it like I described?
I have done some searching for a lathe slide retrofit. Used Hardinge
slides (narrow bed) are about 3000 bucks.