Hey Forum,
I'll start off a new thread about the evolution of my lathe. I started the project about 4 years ago on my high school graduation gift: a 9x20 Grizzly lathe. First it was a VFD spindle,

then it was a Gecko G540 conversion. At that stage noise was faulting the system and the stock pan was leaking horribly.

So I started mostly from scratch and built a stand from 1" square tube.

Then I built a control box where all the wires were shielded and grounded.

The sliding door was no good so I built a gull hinged door for easy access to the whole machine.

And these are the two posts. Not enough room for gang style tooling in this machine.

All the sheet metal was from some guys kitchen floors that I managed to get for a case of beer.

So after everything is finally running beautifully I get a job for some 1018 steel parts that the machine can not handle. I'm only getting paid about $7per and it's taking the better part of a half hour to turn 1.25" bar stock to an M12x1.5 thread 20mm long. The motor running the spindle is 3hp run off a Lenze/AC Tech VFD, but anytime I run a deeper cut than .02Dia I have to wear earplugs. I tried reinforcing the spindle with some angle iron, but all to no avail. The spindle is correctly preloaded, all bolts are correctly tightened, and the height on all tools is positive with perfect center alignment.
If you've got some ideas about what's wrong please let me know.
I need to be able to cut steels(including stainless) and do it in a small production setting. ~100-200 parts.
So now I'm redesigning the machine from the base up with linear guides, my own 8position turret design, and preferably a D1-4 spindle. I'm shooting for a slanted bed a bit like this lathe.
All of it should fit inside the enclosure I've already spent a lot of time fabricating.
I've already got the design for the turret, but I need to find a good D1-4 spindle before I start designing the bed, ways, etc.
Does anybody know where I can find one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?
Thanks for the help.
Jake