[dbunyip]

About to pull the trigger on a TL-2, not being a lathe guy I wanted to see others opinions on the tool changer. They wont sell the 8 tool changer on a machine with a tailstock but they will the 4. I feel like more often than not a person would need more than 4 tools but maybe I'm wrong. So my questions are: Is 4 tools enough most of the time? How hard is it to remove the tool changer and go to a manual tool post if needed (I did find a post via google searching of a guy doing this but didn't go into how much work it was). I have found a couple used 8 tool changers for sale, are they not that good?

[metalmayhem]

they used to sell the tl1 with a manual tool changer not sure about the tl2 . If the did or do then it shouldn't be hard to modify

I used a tl1 a lot for prototyping and small runs and the 4 post accomplished what I needed to do . If your going to be using a few drills and taps then it's easy to make a bar that holds a few tools which only eats one tool changer position . That way you still have room for a partoff , turning and another tool if needed