Author Topic: Turning a taper  (Read 4379 times)

Offline Sid_Vicious

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Turning a taper
« on: January 29, 2017, 11:31:58 AM »
I found this on Youtube about how to turn a taper without offsetting the tailstock
  His idea of using a boringhead is smart in my opinion.
Nothing is impossible, it just take more time to figure out.

Offline sparky961

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Re: Turning a taper
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2017, 01:35:07 PM »
Skip to about half way through the video if you don't want your time wasted.

He gets a very impressive finish for a long skinny part on a small hobby lathe.

I've seen this before but never had the chance to test it out myself.  I like the idea for many reasons.

HOWEVER, I do have to raise a safety/reliability question in terms of the boring head having no positive means of being prevented from turning in the tailstock taper.  If it was mentioned in the video, I must have skipped past that part.  If the cutting tool were to dig in and get stuck, the force would probably cause the material to go up.  The fallout from this situation may result in the part being launched, but it would most likely stay between the centres.  Your setup has been compromised though, and you'll have to set it up all over again.  This is all just speculation, but it wouldn't take much to come up with a means of securing the boring head to prevent one from finding out what would happen if it rotates during a cut.

Offline Fergus OMore

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Re: Turning a taper
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2017, 02:04:40 PM »
manIt's all quite ancient. The drawings were published in Popular Mechanics on page 212 and are still on the net. The kit for a beginners project is advertised in Hemingwaykits. Mine, which arrived with my MyfordML10 came professionally made from Arrand Tooling.

Whilst on that subject, I got a Martin Cleeve Swing Tool - probably the original design is on page 113 and it also came with the lathe.
Since then, the design has been updated several times and Hemingwaykits has the design and kits for the retracting screwcutting facility on the tool.

It's another 'roundtoit' but I have the kit- along with Tubal Cain Gibraltar tool post!

What the taper turning device needs is waisted( not a wasted) Slocombe centre. Probably one has to make one's own :scratch:

Hope this helps

Offline smiffy

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Re: Turning a taper
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2017, 02:38:42 PM »
Have been turning tapers like that for years and it works well
.I use a female centre in both headstock and tailstock and use a ball bearing at each end to support the work
Centre drill are  available that are radiused to give a better support to the ball bearing  http://www.drill-service.co.uk/Product.asp?Parent=040020180020&Tool=10  or thess http://www.drill-service.co.uk/Product.asp?Parent=040020200020&Tool=711
                                        Mike