The tailstock is MT2. At least the tailstock I have. There were three tailstocks available for my 6300-series... the regular one that is not adjustable in any way (I don't have this one), the adjustable one which can do minor offsets (about 7/8" max offset across the width of the bed) which I have, and of course, the turret tailstock which I also have. The turret has 1" holes for tooling, I believe. I haven't used it much to be honest.

The ID taper of the L00 nose will have to be measured, because I haven't successfully found documentation to what it is, either in the manuals or on the web, or from Clausing themselves. They do stock the collar that fits into there, and I have one here which came with the lathe so measuring it shouldn't be a big deal. I have calipers. It's calculating the angle that's going to be fun as my math skills are rusty rusty rusty. I did pick up the bar stock this morning to make more MT2 taper (end mill and center drill holders) as well as an attempt at making the taper for the L00 nose, which if it works out means I don't have to do the collet-in-a-collar any longer, I can simply machine the end that sticks out to be an end mill holder, for example. This would also allow enough OD to bore out for up to a 1.250" shank, which could be used for a dovetail cutter, larger roughing mills and so on. Maybe if this works out, I could make the ID of this part to accept 5C collets, giving more access to tooling. I have a box of unsorted 5C stuff that I can't use currently, which I bought by mistake before I understood MT2, R8, and 5C. I saw the word "Clausing Lathe" in the ebay auction and got excited and bid lol. Wasn't a lot of money, maybe $15 but the shipping was easily double that. Heavy box of many things.

And yes, using the clamps and the bar I made a thick "needle" for sure

But hey, it worked. Of course I assumed the bar stock I used was flat and true, which is highly unlikely considering it was in the bottom of the scrap pile.

Probably why all the futzing was necessary.

Once I do the collars I'll have to try and make a simple milling vice.

I also have an extra stepper and some pulleys, so I may make myself a nice auto-feed for the compound slide, as the base slide is fully automated in any and all directions, but the top slide requires manual turning. Not that I'm lazy, just that for turning tapers and such consistancy of movement seems to be important and I'm not getting that turning it by hand, with my wavy hands.

 

The info I have seen was that L00 inside taper for the collar was an odd taper, almost a #5 but not quite but the collar was supposed to be a #3 inside.

 

The collar I have is definately a #2 as the things that fit into the tailstock, fit into the collar. Maybe there were more than one collar available at one point? This is a really old lathe... 1959.

I attempted to make the ID taper for the spindle nose... and the angle I cut is correct, though unfortunately like the MT2 tapers I cut yesterday, the cut isn't straight no matter how slow I turn the cross-saddle's ****. I guess I have to revisit the jibs on the two saddles and see what is loose. It's only in the middle of the travel of the top saddle that the taper I cut bows out slightly. And I mean slightly... but enough that I can wiggle the taper I made in the spindle.

I'll get this eventually

 

1959 is old. Almost as old as I am... Have you checked the serial number on that UK site? Any info or data that you find on your lathe should also be relayed to that site to help build the database. Keep looking for operators manuals or parts manuals on ebay and other places. I figure the more of that old data we can preserve the better.

Sounds like a little play in the gibs, or maybe just a little dirt & wear. A bigger radius on the tool will help make a smoother finish when hand cranking. It does not sound like that is your problem tho.

Wait until you make your toolpost grinder!

 

Actually, I have the parts manual as well as the operating manual, neither of which describe the taper. The parts manual gives me a part number for the collar I'm trying to duplicate, and there were three collars depending on the serial number of the machine. Seems the spindle (and a few other things) changed around 001800, 002400, 002900, 003155, etc. Mine's in the 0029xx category, and that and the later serial numbers use the same tapered collar.

So, I should contact Tony at that site and discuss if he wants copies of my operation and parts manual?

There is a little play. I can't grab the toolpost and yank on it and feel any play at all, however it's obvious when I'm using a parting tool. The saddle wiggles "just a little" probably from the torque involved in cutting. Got hit in the chest last night with a chunk of parting tool also - that really hurt Glad I was wearing goggles, three shirts and a large sweatshirt for warmth and apparently impact protection. This is the first time my Clausing tried to kill me

I ended up removing the long round bar that I tapered the end, and hacking it off in the chop saw, then rechucking and cleaning up the end I was cutting.

I cut the taper trice actually, first with a larger 5/8" square shank HSS tool with a sharp point on the edge, and that didn't fit well at all, then reskimmed it with a carbide triangle holder with a super pointy triangle in the holder, and that didn't fit right, then reskimmed a third time with a rounded triangle, and that gave a much better finish but still it's not quite right in the middle of the taper - fatter than it should be.

Also bought a "lot" of 5lbs of carbide cutting tools (the kind where the tips are brazed to the steel shank) for a few dollars on ebay. This is my second such lot, which gave me some useful carbide tools and the others, well, weren't so useful. Still tremendous value for the money. Are the shanks of these type of cutters HSS by any chance? If so I could flip them around and use the shank as cutting tools with some sharpening. Still need to pick up a green griding wheel, mine's shot lol.

I'll take the upper saddle off today and blow it out and relube it, then play with the gibs (yes, not jibs!) and see if I can get things to tighten up a little bit. Thanks for the tips and advice, much appreciated.

This is by far my most favorite tool

Toolpost grinder - Hmmmm. Once I get this tapered thing done I can chuck various end mills I have, and maybe find myself a metal cutting dovetail bit, and make a few aloris-style holders out of mild steel, for holding things like a dremel, hole saws, and so forth. Once I measure the circumference of the 8" 4-jaw (because I know the chuck isn't exactly 8" to three decimal places <grin>) I'm going to make/print a simple 0-360 degree indexing strip to fit around the perimeter of the chuck and put a simple pointer on the headstock, sorta as an indexing rotary table. Then rotate by hand to a specific degree, then bore a hole in the side using a homemade BXA holder with a round slide, with a hand drill on one end, and a bit on the other That I would have a lot of use for right now, making bushings and hubs for my son's pedal car. Right now I turn the hub/bushings on the lathe, then align "center" in a vice under my drill press. Works great for non-critically drilled holes (as in holding the hub on the axle) but they aren't really centered. Only reasonably close.

I have lots of ideas for custom bxa holders... but I need the dovetail cutter and I imagine that's quite a few pennies. Anyway, need to finish up the milling cutter holder first...

For a milling attachment (the vice part) I came up with some simple designs as well as more complicated designs, thinking about clamping the work as well as moving it vertically in front of the milling cutter in the headstock.

If I had the cash I'd buy a 3-axis rotary table and fangle that onto the t-slot on the upper saddle as my friend did with his chinese made tiny lathe. His rotary table can be cranked x-y, cranked to rotate, and tilted from horizontal to vertical from it's mounting point. He made a custom saddle for it too, but his lathe's saddle is much smaller and is fairly simple, whereas my Clausing's saddle is a huge, cast piece with v-grooves.

Something like this, but I don't think this is the correct one - the part number isn't in my 6300 parts list regardless of serial number range I look under:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Saddle-Casting-f...QQcmdZViewItem

But it gives you an idea of what that saddle looks like.

What is cool is I skimmed my CV Intercepter rotors last nght as well... only because something crusty got between one of the pads and the rotor and made a nice score on one of the rotor surfaces... and it skimmed out on the lathe. Was a close fit shoving a 12.8" diameter rotor on a 12x24" lathe, but it just fit and I could barely shove my pinky between the rotor and the "V" ridge on the bed. I couldn't get the saddle back far enough because of the large, complicated Aloris carbide cutting tool holder so I cut on the far side, which wasn't a big deal. Skimmed the face of both rotors the same amount and the scratch was removed. Replaced the pads too, though they weren't worn other than one pad having a metal thing embedded in the pad surface. Tiny, tiny little piece of metal.

Which I could chuck my F350 rotors, but they're way to large to fit!

 

Check some of these out on ebay:
Item number: 140047900986
Item number: 260049852171

I am always open to tooling I find in my area so I can pick it up. Most of that stuff is way to heavy to ship. It is usually much cheaper to buy when you can find a deal like this than even to get the material to make one.

 

That saddle casting looks similar to most lathes, function makes form...

The shanks of the carbide cutters are not HSS.

Check out the auctions and HF for those Aloris holders.

Chucking up wheels and rotors was one reason I went for a big lathe.

A lathe WILL kill you if you are not VERY careful. A little 3" job can kill you as quickly as a 36" lathe. People tend not to respect power. A piece of clothing or even hair catching on a turning part can rip an arm off or pull you into the lathe in a blink of an eye. My grandfather saw a beautiful blond woman with long hair on a industrial tour flip her hair and it was caught in a lathe belt. It ripped her face off and she died of shock.

 

Frederic- The shanks of those carbide tools are usually very soft- too soft to work as a cutting tool. As for the taper, divide 1/2 the diameter difference by the length of taper. This will be the inverse of the tangent (got a scientific calculator?) Example: Say the taper is 2 inches long. The difference from the big diameter to the small end is .500". Take half of that (you want the angle on one side, not the included angle) so it would be: .250/2 inv tan= 7.125 degrees. Your calculator may say "2nd" instead of Inv. If you have a small enough indicator to fit inside a bit, you can get a very accurate measurement of the taper, by seeing what the change in diameter is over a known distance into the hole. It sounds like the gibs are loose, but the ways are probably not true enough for the required accuracy. Try putting some bluing on the taper, fit it to the hole, and when you take it out, you should see the high spot. You can carefully file the high spot on the lathe at slow RPM. Keep repeating this process til you get a good fit. Jeweler's lathes often don't even use a crosslide; the turning is done with a hand-held tool much like a wood lathe, and finished w/ a file. Another plan for your taper would be to relieve the center section, so it just hits on each end. There is also the remote possibility that the hole itself is worn in a bellmouth shape, causing the wobbly fit.

 

You're not going to believe this... I was watching that auction. It closed before I remembered it was closing unfortunately.

Cool, Now watching that book. I may bid on it.

I spent several hours at a local "vintage tooling supplier" who has just about every cutter, tap, mill type you can think of. All new, all old/vintage, most covered in factory wax from 20 years ago.

I picked up a pair of MT2 shanked 5/8" end mills for $20 a pop... shoved them into the collar I was trying to reverse engineer and already milled the length of a few bent bolts I had lying around, by clamping them into one of the BXA tool holders.

Once I moved the belt on the lathe to the middle pulleys are higher, the cutting was absolutely beautiful.

After some cash infusion tomorrow I'm going to take a portion of that and head over there again later in the week to do some serious tool collecting.

For example, their end mills... 10' units, 30' wide, with 2" high drawers of end mills. I only grabbed morse taper shanked mills, certainly they have other stuff as well as lathe cutting tools, HSS and carbide. All new, all really old stuff.

 

There are several places like that around KC. Much of the tooling has been rejected and is surplus tho due to wear etc. It is usually newly sharpened but may be too small etc. Take your dial calipers when you go.

When I saw that auction I figured it was near you and it only had a few hours to go so I posted it as quick as I could since your green light was on. That was why I had two posts after each other.

The book was one of several listed from the same seller.