john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
When I was at the AAW symposium in Louisville I was talking to James Green of Powermatic and told him that I had measured the parts from my friends 3520C and though they would fit my A. He called one of the engineers and had them check and they said that they thought it would work. He volunteered to send me the parts if I would do the conversion and write up an article on it if it worked. Why would I want to do that you ask. Well the 3520C has an Acme thread that is 6tpi. It is a beefier square thread so it's much stronger. Since it's 6 instead of roughly 16 advancing the quill is much faster. The job only took me about an hour. If you have patience the slot for the quill pin is easy to cut with a Dremel and small straight cutter. I did have to drill and top a hole for the screw that holds the quill pin. If I can figure out how to put a PDF file on here I will post it. I obviously don't have any info on cost and it may or may not be prohibitive to do this but man what difference it makes when using the tailstock.