About: Look at your man, now look at me, now back to your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me, but he could be like me if he followed my instructables.

Hello again everyone, this time I'll be showing you how to make a quick-change tool holder for your metal lathe. I've been wanting one for mine for a few years, but a good post and a matching set of tool holders costs a few hundred dollars at minimum, and I couldn't justify that kind of expense when I already owned old but perfectly functional tool holders. Well, I finally got sick of having to mess around with shims, incorrect tool alignment after locking down the tool holders, and other assorted garbage for 5 minutes every time I wanted to switch tools, so I decided to see if I could design and machine a homemade version of a quick-change tool holder which would work as well as the best ones I could buy. I ended up making it mostly out of random bits of scrap I had lying around, and ended up spending about $15 on a few set screws and a 1/2-13 tap. (I already had one somewhere, but I couldn't find it.) I have been very satisfied with the result so far.

My design is based around a hollow cylindrical central tool post which is split vertically into 4 sections, allowing it to expand and lock the tool holders in place by tightening a nut. One advantage of my design over traditional tool holders is that it has space for 2-3 tools on each tool holder block depending on which tools you put in each block, compared to one tool per block on traditional dovetailed tool posts. This allows you to put your most-used tools on the same holder, thus making switching between them even faster as all you have to do is rotate the block around the post to select one.

Let's get started!

Note: Dimensions in this instructable are for the pieces to fit on my particular lathe, an ancient (but still going strong) south bend model A 9 inch. You will probably have to adjust some of the dimensions to make the tool fit your lathe.