Clausing lathe?

It was not bad, at all, though I seem to have lost the record of that order.

The ratio of the tailstock would be the circumference of the handwheel at the crank point vs the distance traveled in a single turn.

That of the tailstock would be the ratio of the ball handle radius to the pitch radius of the spur gear.

I think that they may work out to be about the same, but you get the extra benefit of an Acme screw, so you don't have to fight to keep the pressure on -- since the Acme can't be driven back.

Agreed. There are lever-feed tailstocks, and lever-feed kits for the existing tailstock (or there once were, at least) which make them a but better for drilling than the standard tailstock. I've got a copy of a manual for installing the kit somewhere, but of course, no kit. :-)

I discovered this by receiving some in lots of unusual tooling from eBay. I've got one mounted in a boring bar holder for an Aloris toolpost, so I can use the carriage for deep drilling -- and even use power feed for the drilling.

The lock which Harold described to me involved removing the shim from the last bolt (tailstock end, not headstock end) in the gibs to allow the bolt to clamp it down onto the ram ways for locking the ram in position. You lose a bit of the guidance of the ram -- but from the end where it is least needed. I suspect that if used for long, you would accumulate wear and have to mill or grind off a bit of the end over the base casting to allow it to contact the ram again.

Get a boring head with a 1" cylindrical shank, and take a level to get it set just right (assuming that the bed is level too, instead of just adjusted true -- this is one place where true leveling would benefit the lathe.

Enjoy, DoN.