Making tools and accessories for a lathe is fun.

Not sure what it's called, but I made a collet release/holder today. Just threaded rod with a deliberately bent washer so it fits into the larger opening on the lathe's handwheel without wobbling, passes through the headstock, and into the collet which insert into the spindle's collet holder.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002090.JPG

So, now I can drill and mill using the headstock rather than spinning the work and trying to drill/mill with the tailstock.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002092.JPG
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002093.JPG

Of course I can't mill yet as I haven't made a sideways milling table - yet.

Wait, yes I can!

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002094.JPG

Milling into 1" round stock, to make a small angled platform so I can drill through with a 19/64" bit followed with a 5/16" reamer.

Why?

Homemade, 12" long boring bar! Now the 5/16" round HSS tooling I've collected is useful!

 

Congratulations, you made a drawbar!

Now that you have made a small boring bar to fit your toolholder you can make a big one 2-3" in diameter to fit in a large clamp block you can make also that bolts down on the compound. It is useful to machine the outside of large OD parts and of course larger bore parts. Machine both ends of the bar for tools.

A lathe can be used to duplicate itself. It used to be the only machine tool that could do that but some of the newer CNC equipment can probably do that now.

 

That's awesome! I'll have to commit some of these projects into memory in case I've ever got to build any of those. We have put a large taper shank bit in our headstock and spun the bit to drill into the side of some large shaft when we were making pins for our 920 CAT Loader.

What kind of lathe do you have? We've got a 16" Southbend turret lathe with about a 6' bed.

 

The lathe is a 1959 Clausing 6300 series, 12x24.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...t/IM001730.JPG

I have two tailstocks, the "regular" tailstock with a box of different live centers I picked up on ebay, MT2 taper. The tailstock in the above picture is the turret tailstock, which I'm still clueless in how to use and not sure if I'm setting it up correctly or not. Still learning how to use this machine which is why simple things like drawbars (TY for the correct name of the part Torque!) and boring bars were so much fun to make. Finally I'm getting the hang of using the 4-jaw which will lend to accurate turnings without the wobble of the 3-jaw. I think my 3-jaw didn't land on the backing plate correctly, because it's always off a hair. I was thinking of reskimming the backing plate, drilling three new holes and trying again.

One of these days I'll figure out how to make BXA holders, and opening up to even more tooling ideas from there. One of the things I'd really like to do is mount a small rotary table onto a large, homemade BXA holder. I can make an angle thing, mill it flat, but a rotary table would be so useful. I'd be able to mount things like bushings, and homemade pulleys, and rotate the work accurately to drill mounting holes. Right now I just skip a very slight "ring" into the surface so I know the distance from the center, then make and drill those on the drill press. More accurate than my old method, of dropping a sharpie dot through whatever is mounting to the part, then drilling on the drill press.

Making tapers would be fun too... I am curious as to what taper the collet holder that goes into the headstock is... if I could figure that out I could make another one with a same OD taper with maybe a larger, R8 ID taper and have access to even more tooling on ebay.

Of course my tailstock isn't adjustable so I have no obvious way of turning a taper, though I imagine I could use the turret tailstock for that. Would just have to lift it off the wood base I have it sitting on now with a little grunting. It's one heavy piece!

 

You might look into a set of transfer punches as well... they only cost about $10 bucks for the sizes 3/32" to 1/2" by 64ths.

Transfer Punches

Of course they're made in china, but ours that we got seem to be of good quality and they're much better than trying to guess where the middle of the hole is! One word of advice for using them though, don't smack them hard like you would a center punch because you'll finally flatten them. Just tap them to make a mark, and then get your normal center punch and whack away!

 

Second the transfer punches.

The last time I looked I saw BXA type holders at Harbor Freight as complete sets. The clamp part was a piece but the holders were usable. Much much cheaper than the Aloris parts. I don't remember what size they were or the configuration.

Taper adapters can often be found used at places like Airparts that have used industrial tooling. Have you ever looked up your lathe specs on the net? Try this link:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/

My lathe is the big brother to this one with hardened ways and 7.5HP motor etc:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/voest/

For grins check out the local library and see if they have any books on lathe operation or machine shop work etc. You may get all kinds of ideas!!!

 

Hey Eric.

This is my lathe on that website:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/clausing/page2.html

According to that page, my spindle has an L00 taper. Is that the inside taper, or the outside taper? Maybe I can find an affordable spare backing plate for this machine.

I figured out how to make a simple taper turning attachment, using heavy plate and two rollers, by making a different "end" for the saddle that follows a heavy steel bar that I'd have to machine both sides. A friend made one for his 7x12" micromark lathe and it used one roller, and a huge spring. The roller follows the angled bar, pulling the saddle towards the back of the machine, while a huge spring tries to push it away (as would the work you're tapering I imagine). So the fat end of the taper is to the left, by the chuck, and the narrow end is towards the tailstock. I may copy that.

My local library has diddly... but I've purchased three books on ebay that are machining in nature. One is on turning and boring, the other is grinding and milling, and the third book is "American Machinst's Handbook" from 1955.

 

At that same site (TONS of info there) check this link for your spindle nose dimensions:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/latheparts/page9.html
There are a ton of books and instruction manuals there also:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/books.htm

I was lucky and took a college course on machine work as well as others on metalworking, sheetmetal, foundry,and welding. I also worked a few years in several machine shops as an engine lathe operator and crankshaft grinder as well as brief stints on various other machines. That experience helped a lot in my Engineering career when I designed parts and machinery.

That 1955 book is 1935 technology. A lot has changed since then with the introduction of carbide, insert tools, and CNC.

A taper attachment is not a big problem. You may be able to pick up the part on eBay or make one as you said. Your lathe was a popular model. I have spent a number of hours turning on a similar Clausing but most of my work was on a Monarch and Okuma. I figure fabrication is my only option since there are not a lot of my Vöest lathes here in the states. Of course there is always the CNC option...
Check out:
http://www.cnczone.com/

 

Here I sit with back pain that had me in bed all week with a Bridgeport, 12x36 Atlas lathe, rotary index table, Tig and Mig intge garage I can't use, ****!

 

That is one reason to gather all the toys early because later on you may not be able to enjoy them. You never know what will happen.

 

So true!!! I need to get myself a bridgeport or clone vertical milling machine and soon... before it's too late!

 

billybob, you going somewhere soon? Hope not.

 

Thank you Eric for the links.... I have some of that bookmarked, but I still don't have the ID taper of the L00 spindle nose, but that's okay. I'll figure it out eventually.

Decided to play with the compound saddle today, and after a lot of math which gave me an incredible headache, I arrived that an MT2 taper is tapered to 1 degree, 25 minutes, and 50 seconds. Setting this on my lathe of course is difficult because the compound saddle has markings for full degrees only, and I can barely see them even when moving the overhead light around and squinting. So I made a few "off" tapers out of old 3/4" bolts until I got one correct enough it would sit in the headstock's collet and stay put. Once that occurred, I put the 4-jaw chuck back on and turned four more out of 3/4" grade 8 bolts.

Cutting the taper:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002099.JPG

Flipped bolt around, fitting newly made Mt2 taper into the headstock's removable collet, and skimming off the bolthead and removing the offset of the bolt shank:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002100.JPG

Why was the bolt shank offset? Because I damaged my dial indicator earlier in the summer by turning on the lathe and forgetting to remove the dial caliper away from the workpiece, and the lathe jaw smacked it across the room.

So, without a dial caliper, it's difficult to set four independent jaws to "dead center", so I futzed with it for a while until I got it as close as I could by eyeballing it.

-------

To solve the taper problem as far as the lathe being marked in full degrees only, and a MT2 taper being 1 degree, 25 seconds and 50 minutes, I used a little ingenuity. What I did was c-clamp a 2' long piece of 3/4" square stock to the side of the upper saddle, then rotate it so it's parallel to the bed using my digital calipers between the bar and the tailstock, which I moved against the saddle for one measurement, then move it to the end of the bed for the other measurement. With minor adjustments I kept repeating this tailstock "back and forth" method until both measurements were as identical as I could get them.

I forgot what it calculated out to, but the MT2 ended up being something like 5/8" per foot taper. Anyway, whatever it was, I doubled it since the clamped on bar was 2' long, and adjusted the compound saddle so the end of the bar was over the centerline of the lower saddle. Then, added the double measurement (10/8" if my above statement is correct). Then, cut the taper. It was off a hair, so I adjusted slightly, then reskimmed it, and kept going until I got one that fit into the collet and stayed put.

Kinda cool, huh?

With a compound saddle, I don't need a taper attachment. All I need is this bar (but probably something stiffer for future work) and measurements from the tailstock to the end of the bar, recording what that measurement is for each type of taper I want to turn.

 

I have read some data that the headstock was a Morse #3 same as the tailstock but I may be wrong on that. Really check out that UK website.

You kind of made a long needle "indicator".

Machinery's handbook has a whole section on different tapers, specs, measurements, etc. They can be found in decent local libraries but probably not yours. Mosts machinists will have one. In fact there is a special drawer in machinist tool chests for the book. They can also be found at used book sales and on the web.

 

LOL I hope not too seeing as I'm only 21, but the sooner I get one the more projects I can get done before I DO go somewhere.