Hi,
I made these a while back and was asked to post these up on the Aussie WW forum , so I thought I would post them here as well as it may give some other ideas.
Other than shape and length, they are not my idea as I saw someone else's on a forum and thought is was a good idea so I copied.
I made 5 short blanks first, then got another idea and changed my mind and made the extended ones up.
I made them extended so I had more reach over the cross slide with the DRO scale on the cross slide limiting the tailstock travel. I have different size centre drills in each one, and they are handy to have ready to go loaded instead of messing with a drill chuck.
For the taper I mount set up a MT to roughly set the compound, then use the taper function on the DRO to do the final set up. I have compared the 2 set ups and copying the tapper with a dial indicator is slightly inaccurate compared to the DRO, but not that much it would really bother you in a home workshop.
To check the machined taper I take the tailstock quill out and use it after bluing up the machined taper.
1st, 2nd, 3rd picture is of machining it
4th picture is doing the other end with the MT end mounted directly in the lathe spindle with a MT5 to MT 3 adapter.
5th,6th,7th picture is the finished product, I made a spare for another centre drill size as well.
They are only mild steel and the finish on them is strait off the tool (HSS) with only a light go over with emery to knock off the sharp edges.
Like I said above the shorter ones I made first then changed my mind and decided to make extended ones to reach over the cross slide because of the DRO scale limiting the tail stock travel. I have plans for them, so no wasted time in changing my mind half way through.
The 4 grooves are just for decoration and I reduced the end of the MT so if they get a bump the burr wont prevent it from seating properly.
The finished pictures where just taken yesterday so they have held up well. I have a bad rust problem in my shed so everything gets kept in oiled plastic bags, most the zip lock type.
Dave
