I have verified that my old Clausing lathe has a 4-1/2 morse taper inside (about two weeks ago). Of course I'd like to convert this to something more useful, specifically for collets (5c or R8). I have an adapter for MT2, but some of my end mills are too large for my collet set.

After much disappointment in trying to machine a nice, smooth 4-1/2 morse taper, I decided last week to buy such an adapter. All the usual places, enco, grizzly, harbor freight, and many, many tooling companies haven't lead me to find such a thing.

Anyone know of a tooling place that sells an adapter that convers morse taper 4-1/2 to something else?

My worse case scenario is a $350 L00 jacobs collet chuck... which rides on the outside of the spindle rather than inside, but I'd prefer something less costly.

Another option is to buy an R8 collet holder, and center it on a spare L00 backplate I have for my lathe. But I'd rather save the backplate for a 6-jaw chuck if I can do so.

 

I do not even have specs or listings for a #4-1/2 Morse. I assume you just have measured it to be about half way between a #4 and a #5?

Have you checked with Clausing?
http://www.clausing-industrial.com/
Or even our favorite UK site?
Maybe trade a manual???
http://www.clausing-industrial.com/
They may already have a copy tho.

Watch eBay for chucks, they seem to appear quite often.

 

I spoke to Clausing directly, extensively, and they insisted it's a MT4-1/2 taper. I borrowed MT adapters, and verified that MT4 is too small, and MT5 is too large, so I can't argue with Clausing on this. Regardless what it is as far as a "standard", I cannot seem to find a collet adapter of any kind that allows me to use 5C or R8 collets. Jacobs has a 300 rubber chuck that fits onto the spindle, which is an L00, but even used they are quite pricy. Googling gave me some pictures of homemade MT4-1/2 to 5C collet adapters, so obviously other people have had the same issue that I have. If I can adapt to standard collets, I can do more with the machine, obviously. Here is a list of "standard" tapers that I've been putting together over the last week: http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard-lathe-tapers.html

Since I have a bushing that fits into the tapered ID of the L00 spindle, I have something I can measure without taking the headstock apart, so I did so and the measurements were very close to the MT4-1/2 listing in the above chart. The margin of errors I will attribute to my inability to hold the digital caliper still enough with my freezing cold, jittery hands.

So I decided to give turning one myself another try. I kept getting nasty grooves in the other attempts, and someone suggested that I don't use a pointy lathe cutter, but instead one that has a rounded cutting edge and turn the cross-slide slower. Since I have a box of unsorted, nearly free (purchased by weight) HSS lathe cutters, I took one and rounded/angled an end to make such a cutter, and ended up with a really smooth finish, with what may be an MT4-1/2 taper

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002148.JPG

Imagine that, it fit into the spindle with a very slight tap of a ballpeen hammer:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002149.JPG

I still need to blue it and refit it to see if any hand filing is necessary, but it fits really tightly and a slight tap of the hammer makes it impossible to remove by hand. In fact I had to beat it out from behind using a section of 1" black pipe lol.

I was bidding on various slides on ebay, however they kept going way out of my price range, so I'm considering making one using my dovetail cutter on friday, since I have a few hours in front of the bridgeport. If that works out, I'll be attaching this vice:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...ling/vice3.jpg

Just won that on e-bay, and while it's fancier than I need it will probably do the job. My original plan was to use an adjustable angle vice that I also won, by bolting it down to a plate I mount where my tool post is. Then I could use the main cross-slide for "X" and the top slide for "Y" by simply rotating it 90 degrees. Then I can leave the man cross-slide locked on the bed for additional stability while milling. But, it doesn't give me a Z axis so I'm going to use the first vice, and a homemade dovetail slide. I'll need to make/acquire/insert material for a jib and of course allen bolts with lock washers just like my lathe has. I'm going to try and use the same allen wrench size just to make things easier. Here is the second vice, I'm probably not going to use on the lathe for the reasons above, and instead bolt it to my drill press table:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...ling/vice4.jpg

Aside from slides and cranks and various other things, I'll have to borrow a 5C and R8 collet to see which is easier to fit into this "plug" I made (first two pictures) and then give maching it a try. Hopefully, I won't have to turn 20 of these to get it right. Ruining 1.75" round stock repeatedly gets expensive quickly!

 

I think I suggested a radiused cutter for the taper, glad it worked out.

#4-1/2 Morse is not listed in my Machinery's Handbook. It has extensive taper listings including Morse. Must be something Clausing came up with to fit the application. Makes it tough to find anything that is not proprietary tho.

As far as ebay is concerned it takes patience to find anything. I looked for three years before I found my lathe. Nothing like it has come up in the last year in the midwest. If you can make something that will work you might be ahead. Of course if your luck is anything like mine something will come up for half the cost a week after you get it built. Just don't let it stop you from having fun.

Are you going to use roller bearings or brass tips on your steady rest?

Socket head cap screws are great for machine tools.

Nice vise! I can see where the second one would be nice on the drill press.

While you are making things make yourself a nice micrometer stop for the lathe bed.

Can you find a reamer to finish out the 5C or R8 collet?

Did you ever get another indicator?

I just got a gear reducer on ebay to cut the speed down on my "wood only" bandsaw so I can cut metal etc. It will have three speeds; 300/150/75 FPS when I am finished.

 

Very well might have been you So thank you!

Many of the lathes from the 40's to early 60's, with an L00 spindle, seem to have this taper, not just clausing. Specific year ranges of Southbend 10K's for example also have this ID taper. Seems to be specific to "antique" and L00, as if various lathe manufacturers maybe bought L00 spindles rather than making spindles themselves??? Wild guess, I have no idea.

Generally making stuff is cheaper than buying it, but in this case I worry about accuracy. If I were a machinist I wouldn't hesitate with making a dovetail slide but since I'm not, and steel prices seem to be through the roof, it's potentially an expensive risk. Tubing and angle iron I get for next to nothing... but anything with thickness I have to buy. There's a few junkyards one town over that have piles of tubing and angle iron and half the time they just say "take it".

Roller bearings all the way. I have larger ones, medium sized ones, and smaller ones left over from the CNC machine project. At least three of each, so it's a matter of choosing which ones I want to use. Probably, the medium sized ones as I don't plan on turning 12" OD pipes on my lathe.

Absolutely. Much easier to figure out the countersunk hole diameter than for hex bolts, though I've done that too. Instead of measuring the bolt head, I measure the socket OD

Thanks... I think the other vice (the angle-able one) will be for the drill press and the precision vice will be for the slide I'll be making.

I have two, one for each side of the saddle. One came with the lathe, the other I won on ebay for $10-15. The second one I'm going to duplicate the housing (more or less) and figure out how to tie it into the lathe, so when the stop is hit the lathe stops moving the saddle. I had made a metal "hat" that fits over the adjustable post that sticks out, with a microswitch on it and while that did work, the lathe (depending on the gearing/belts selected) will slow down and not stop instantly. I need to device a way of making the saddle stop on a dime. This way if I get distracted even for a moment, the saddle will stop moving before the carbide cutter hits the chuck.

They exist? Didn't even occur to me, I'll have to google this evening when I get back from Brooklyn.

[QUOTE=Torque1st]IDid you ever get another indicator?/quote]
Yes, but I ruined it already. I was centering a piece of round stock in the 4-jaw, and couldn't get it centered where it stayed put, then realized I hadn't tightened the chuck back to the spindle nose tight enough, so without thinking I pulled out my spanner wrench to tighten the chuck, and my wife pushed "open" on the garage remote so she could ask me something, and it startled me and I bumped the dial indicator with the spanner wrench, knocking the carbide tip off the tube that sticks out. I'd glue it back on if I could find it... but it bounced off the bed of the lathe and landed in my large rubbermaid container of lathe spirals and chop saw dust

I just can't win.

I intended to use my bandsaw for metal, but even with a metal cutting blade, it's too "toyish" for the job. I managed to fry the bearings on the adjustable height thingy trying to cut 1/2" bar stock. So at some point I'll fix that and make it more heavy duty... but for now I just cut wood on it. I still need to put casters on the bandsaw stand so I don't have to keep banging my **** on it - it's kinda buried near my lathe just behind where I stand.

*sigh*

Another day, another broken tool.

 

I even looked up the 4-1/2 Morse in my antique machinery handbook from 1968 and it didn't show. There was a notation about different machine tool manufacturers using different tapers, some special or proprietary. There was a "special" 4-1/2 taper shown. I did a quick look thru eBay for anything listing a 5c or r8 reamer and did not see any. The terminology used there is a real mix tho.

Can you smooth out the tip of your indicator? It will slowly wear but it should still work OK for centering.

My bandsaw is an 8" Delta tabletop model purchased almost new at a garage sale for $25. It has a 3600FPM blade speed which is ridiculous for nearly anything. A Dayton #2Z821 gear reducer will bring it down to about 150FPM then a couple Dayton #4X559 or Congress SCA43x5/8" 4/3/2" 3-step pulleys will add some adjustment for 75/150/300FPM speeds. The motor on the saw is rated at 1/3HP 1725RPM but that is misleading consumer rated crap, looks more like a ~1/8HP motor. The 300FPM speed will be driving the gear reducer at twice its rated input RPM but for intermittent use I don't think it will hurt it. Ref: http://www.grainger.com/

The micrometer stop should disengage the clutch on the feed drive system and bring the saddle to a stop.

 

While there was nothing wrong with my homemade 3/8" drawbar for my lathe, unfortunately after beating the end with a hammer trying to get the end mill or collets out of the spindle, the threads started to look crummy after a while. Add to that the jam nut I was using to beat with a hammer ended up splitting. *sigh*

So I made a new one out of 3/4" grade 8 round stock:

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002169.JPG


Also, for my DIY milling attachment, I made a t-nut for my crossslide - I haven't drileld and tapped the center hole yet but I did machine the "T" parts on my lathe.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard/...g/IM002154.JPG


Here's the page with both projects, if anyone is interested:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/yard-lathe-tooling.html

Also got the machinist's vice today. Not sure why it was listed as a 3" vice, it's huge and easily 40 lbs. At least it won't warp/twist/bend under load

 

Have you tried the bed stop and see if it releases the feed clutch? Don't try it for threading with the leadscrew tho...

The rounded notch in the drawbar is called a thread relief. Some guys get so good at threading they just crank out on the cross slide every time they get to the end of the threaded portion but it only takes one mistake doing that so I don't even try.

To get nice clean threads set the compound on 29° so when you turn in on the compound during threading it takes the cutting load on the left front side of the cutter and the right side of the cutter tip just barely fuzzes the other side of the thread. There is a tiny tool that machinists use to set the threading cutter perpendicular with the stock. You can see pictures here but the definition is poorly written:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishtail-Center_gauge

Also grind a minuscule flat on the end of your threading cutter to produce a tiny flat at the root of the threads. There are specifications for the flat in the Machinery's Handbook. Some other thread forms use a radius on the root of the threads but that is much harder to grind into the tool. Both thread forms try to minimize stress risers at the root of the thread. There is also a small flat on the crest of the threads. To produce that you turn the stock undersize before threading.

When I was far younger all the older machinists used to come to me and have me touch up their threading tools. Turned out that I had "younger eyes" and a steadier hand (those were the days) which made it easy for me. I was just glad to help out. If I was in the middle of a long cut they just watched my lathe for me. We all had big Okuma lathes so they all operated the same. Nowadays I will have to make myself a fixture to hold my threading cutter at the right angle with a nice micrometer feed. I will also mount that big magnifying lens with the light in it above my tool grinder. Always set up a separate grinder to grind tooling with green (Silicon Carbide) for carbide tools, and white (aluminum oxide) for tool steel, wheels for fine work. You will need a diamond wheel dresser for them. Later on you may want to look at getting a diamond grinding wheel.

BTW- on that big Okuma with a 10HP motor it was not unusual to take a 1/2" deep cut per side (reduce dia by 1") in a single pass with a 0.016 or 0.020" feed rate. The lathe drive belts would howl and the amp meter would indicate full load on the motor. Talk about blue chips!

Now on aluminum... -It's snowing chips! -hehe