I was pondering today about CNC lathe tooling. I was curious if it would be advantageous to have the tool post mounted on a vertical rotary axis so that the tool could remain normal to the tool path when contouring?
The advantage is that you would not need to switch between left-hand and right-hand tools. Also, you could contour complex shapes in one shot. It could also be used with live tooling.
Disadvantages are increased complexity, cost, and required controls. Tool changes might also be pretty tough (turrets and what not). The controls required might be complex as well (radius/length compensation).
What are your thoughts on this? If there is a lathe that does this I would love to know more about it.
-Wes