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On the Cheap: Making a Lathe Test Bar From Water Pipe

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vtsteam:
I don't know about you, but I hate using good clean bar stock for something I may use very occasionally if I don't have to. Steel prices have increased so much that I hoard what steel, hot and cold rolled, I have for use in important projects.

The one thing I find as scrap everywhere in abundance is water pipe. That's a material of preference for me if at all possible. I've even built a steam engine with it -- remember the Pipe and Bolt Mod-Up a few of us did here some years ago?

Pipe steel isn't always great -- it varies in how well it cuts and finishes. But it's plentiful, and, well, a perfect finish isn't always needed. Anyway, I was in need of a rough and ready test bar to reset my tailstock after setting it over when cutting tapers.

To use, it can be set between centers. Then you mount a DTI on the carriage and test at the headstock end, then move the carriage to the tailstock end and adjust the set-over until the DTI agrees there.

But how to make if you aren't sure of your tailstock's position to start with. Well, here's how I did it.

First acquire two pieces of prime quality steel: an old piece of half inch water pipe, and a rusted paint encrusted bit of slightly bent 5/8" rod.

  

vtsteam:
Next chuck the round bar and clean it up a little to make some short plugs for the pipe.

 

vtsteam:
They will be a very loose if not sloppy fit in the pipe depending on how deep you go, but it doesn't matter much because in my case I've decided to weld them in place. But a more refined sensibility might have chosen slightly larger or better rod, and carefully fitted it to the bore. A press fit, some bearing lock compound, or even epoxy, or solder could have been used. Or a pin through both. There are many ways to skin a cat! (Never liked that expression. Why not a potato?)

In my case I chose to weld them. Unfortunately somewhat after sunset, and outdoors, so my auto-darkening welding helmet both flashed me to start, then totally obscured what I was welding. Nevertheless I managed to deposit a few blobs of metal in the approximate right area by guesswork alone.

 

vtsteam:
This is the step where you try to bring some sense of order to the chaos you've created by cutting away as much evidence of your ham-handedness as possible.

 

vtsteam:
Center drill it.

 

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