My oldest is a 3rd year mechanical engineering student who has been prototyping parts for my company the last few years. To this point, he has been using a 3D printer to prototype parts for our shop as needed and done remarkably well with it. He has machine shop experience from high school working in a full production shop on a Hwacheon CNC lathe with Fanuc controls.
The next step forward for him is bringing equipment in house so he can begin handing small runs of 6061 and MD Nylon parts manufacturing. The majority of these parts will be adapter fittings for hose ends and adapters between 2G ACME Straight Cut threads and other thread type such as NPT. The largest 2G ACME thread we currently use is about 3.05" diameter. It is a specialty application part for our niche market. Due to the materials these parts are subjected to, some of the components need to be manufactured from 17-4 Stainless, MD Nylon or other non reactive polymer. The majority of the fittings are made from 6061 Billet currently.
So, with too much background likely offered, is the 15L Slant lathe realistically capable of enough holding pressure and HP to run these parts? We are very impressed with what we’ve seen of the Tormach lathes so far, but it’s been limited to online video tours of small job shops, so want to make sure we are not expecting too much from it.
The largest steel part I’ve machined on my 15L started with some 2.75" diameter x 5" round and it went ok. I did make some soft jaws for the 3 Jaw set-tru chuck to hold the resulting hollow shape.
I think you should work up the design and see if you can have someone at Tormach run it. Nothing better than proof of concept.