I have a lathe.
The lathe has a tapered collar that fits into the spindle, with an MT2 taper inside.
For normal mills (ball, end, etc) which have a straight round shank, one would use MT2 collets with a drawbar and everything is peachy.

However, I have a bunch of MT2 tapered end mills, ranging from 1/2" to 1", which obviously won't fit into Mt2 collets because they are larger, and have the MT2 taper on their shanks already.

However, because they are tanged, they fall out after some milling.

The solution?

Use the indentation at the center point of the tang as a place to start a 5/16" hole, and bore in about 1.5". Then cut off the tang with an angle grinder, chop saw, or a hacksaw. Then tap with a 3/8-16 tap and you can use your drawbar to hold the tapered end mill in place and again, everything is peachy.

This idea would work with any lathe that has a MT-something capability in the headstock, and you have a bunch of MT-something tooling with a tang.

Just passing this on... solved several problems for me.

 

You can leave the tang in place also so it works in other machines that might require a tang. Just drill/mill/grind out the tang to clear the tap. Been there done that...

 

Oh, didn't even think of that. Hmmmm.

Here is my tapping:

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002116.JPG

And here is the end result. THis all gets shoved into the headstock:

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002117.JPG

In fact, I used this about 5 minutes after I finished making it, to mill out part of my son's car's throttle pedal assembly:

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/booto...r/IM002118.JPG

 

That is making your tooling do double duty!

 

Well, like I said on the other thread I need a small mill for some of my projects, but cannot afford a large unit due to space constraints as well as dollar constraints. Mostly the latter.

What I need to find is a very low cost solution to making a milling attachment for my lathe, attaching it either to the turret tailstock, the tool post, or in place of the toolpost by making a big T-nut. Making such a thing isn't very difficult, and squaring it to the milling cutters is easy - simply skim it with an end mill. The problem for me is making it TIGHT and not have the unit itself slop around on itself. I can make it tight to the saddle, toolpost, or turret - no problem. I started fangling that already.

The acme screw part is where I struggle... though I guess there is nothing stopping me from turning my own acme leadscrew using a parting cutter or something like that, then boring a large square nut and welding the nut to the vice base. I could even use a chinese vice to slide up and down if I had to I guess.

I see a couple of these things on ebay, and bid often until it exceeds my max bid. But I'm trying. I could get away with milling on the lathe for a while at least.

 

Ebay is a good source but find the local industrial boneyards. You may find some old scrapped machine with a usable XY table or just a slide that you could mount on your cross slide with a weldment etc. Keep watching your tooling places also.

Do you have any T-slots on your carriage cross slide? If not you could bolt down a weldment where the compound is bolted down. You would need an indicator to get it squared up with the spindle. Access to that large mill would enable you to fly cut the surfaces of the weldment to square them up. Just don't have welds on your surfaces you need to finish. The hard weld material would be hard to machine properly. A few threaded holes in the surface would enable you to bolt down the scavenged slide or other objects.

You don't have to have an ACME screw. A serviceable screw can be made from 3/4"-10TPI all-thread and then use a split nut to take up slack. It would not be accurate over long travel distances but may be accurate enuf for short distances. Find something with 100 graduations and make a dial for it. Of course if you can only find a dial with 125 graduations then use a 1"-8TPI all-thread. A split nut can be made from a regular nut and split with a hacksaw then an adjustable clamping mechanism applied to squeeze it down. Remove any burrs etc from the all-thread for smooth action.