Here goes. It may look daunting but it was actually easy, apart from cutting all the 50 x 10 bright mild steel with a hack saw!!!! This was definitely a bodge job & there are plenty out there with engineering experience & tools that could do it better. One thing I forgot to do at the start was to hold a long, stable piece of timber in my evolution chuck to get a center mark at a distance from the headstock but I had a round aluminium round bar with center marks that I could spin true & check the center after the mod. At point to point, my drive & revolving center hit accurately & the two points can't be pushed passed each other.
Step 1
is to drill a new hole in the bed face 50mm above the original bottom fixing hole & in line. I originally wanted to just screw the top hole of the bed into the bottom hole of the headstock & that would have dropped the bed by 75mm but this places the bed off the milled flat location part of the headstock so you can't drill a new fixing hole in the headstock or the 1/4" holes for the dowel pins. Drill this new hole & open out the old one to 15mm not the 14mm that is already there unless you can place with pinpoint accuracy. the extra mm gives you some room to move the bed.
Step 2
making the shoe for the tailstock needs some 50mm x 10mm bright mild steel bar off ebay. Has to be bright so its square edged. cut to the length of the tail stock. 15mm x 5mm or similar pieces cut to the same length as these are welded to the inner sides and slide in the gap in the bed as shown by my terrible welding in the picture below. 1/2" bsw thread can be bought off ebay & 50mm should be welded to the end of the tailstock eye bolt to extend it
Filler plate added to fill out & stabilise the tailstock. Mine are shown super glued in place & they didn't move while turning & tightened by the tailstock camlock. If they do, i'll tighten up & drill thru to bolt all together.
I had lifted my lathe by 6 inches so i made a bed foot 4 inches to lower the foot & then packed it out to suit. Once everything is accurate & lined up, mark the new bottom fixing hole in the headstock thru the 15mm hole in the bed, remove the bed & drill & tap. Re align everything & once satisfied, drill the 1/4" holes for the dowel pins & weld or drill & tap 50mm risers to the toolrest as shown below. Sorry, massive mistake as i just found out. You don't lift the whole tool rest assembly or you end up back where you started. You get a 45mm diameter solid round bar, 50mm long and drill a one inch hole in it and weld it to the top of the old tool post. I will now punish myself!!!!
