Lathe taper attachment

Mark_f

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Every now and then, I need to turn a taper, but I am not blessed to have a taper attachment on my lathe and the prices they sell for are more than I paid for my lathe, the bench and the tooling. I cannot justify the cost. Soooooo....... as usual , I MADE MY OWN.
I had an old cast iron drill pad that I never used , so with a little machining I built the taper attachment that I found in some old vintage magazine article. I don't know who came up with it , but it is a nice design. It fits in the tail stock and you can adjust the center offset for most common tapers. I make a lot of Morse tapers since I make most of my tooling and this will make that easier. Check it out and you may like to make this for yourself.

after machining.jpg This was an old cast iron drill pad. The taper was off, so I cut a new no 2 Morse taper on the back end.

tailsck taper attachment 1.jpgtaper attacment main parts.jpgI then milled a slot to hold a 1" x 1/2" x 5 1/4" steel bar.

milling setup.jpg This was my mill setup for machining the slot.

Milling the slot.jpg I cut the slot with a 3/4" end mill and widened it for a snug sliding fit on the bar.
test fit in tail stock.jpg Test fit in the tail stock
completed Taper Attachment.jpg I machined two 3/8" slots on each side of a drilled and reamed a 1/2" hole.
front view.jpg The hole holds a center made from drill rod and is a light press fit in the 1/2" hole. two 3/8-16 bolts clamp the bar to the pad through the slots. The flat cut on the top of the pad is to set a level on so the attachment is level with the lathe bed when you put it in the tail stock.

An easy to build tool that comes in handy and no more offsetting the tail stock after I got it all trued up.


By the way, since I had the drill pad , this attachment cost me nothing to make. Got the bar from my scrap box and had the bolts lying around, and the center was a short scrap of 5/8 drill rod.


Mark Frazier

after machining.jpg tailsck taper attachment 1.jpg taper attacment main parts.jpg milling setup.jpg Milling the slot.jpg test fit in tail stock.jpg completed Taper Attachment.jpg front view.jpg
 
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I will be making a slight modification , but I needed to use it first for a little project.

I am going to drill and tap a 10-32 hole in each end of the bar. Then screw a long set screw in each one. this will let me make fine adjustment easily and the bar can't move.




Mark Frazier



 
That’s very nice! You can also use an adjustable boring bar head mounted in the tail stock and fitted with a 60° point instead of a boring bar. And it will also provide graduations for a kind of reference to the taper…Good Luck, Dave.
 
You might want to think about using a dead center that can pivot a little, not sure how that would be done though. Nice work!
 
That’s very nice! You can also use an adjustable boring bar head mounted in the tail stock and fitted with a 60° point instead of a boring bar. And it will also provide graduations for a kind of reference to the taper…Good Luck, Dave.

Ya know, I thought of that one time before, but I don't have a boring head because it is pretty much useless on a Burke mill. There is only 4 " of travel on the w axis and the boring head eats it all up. ( that is why I came up with the boring head attachment for my lathe and 4 jaw chuck). If I need to bore parts, I just put my milling table on the lathe and I have a nice little mill. But , if you have a boring head, yes it would be good for turning tapers.

The plan for the taper attachment called for a small scale mounted to set the taper distance. I may put a nice little brass one on for looks as it is not too practical. I set most of my tapers with an indicator by thousandths per inch
 
You might want to think about using a dead center that can pivot a little, not sure how that would be done though. Nice work!


It would be fairly simple design to have a center pivot slightly, just not worth the trouble to make unless you need to make some pretty steep tapers. The center would have a flat on the top and bottom of the shank then pinned in a slot in the plate. but this would have to be made tight and very precision with no play. It could be set screw locked once set. But, The present setup will cut a fairly steep taper before it becomes a problem and most all my tapers are tooling tapers such as Morse, B&S, and the like which are no problem for this attachment.

Also, I don't like drive dogs so I never use a center in my headstock. I have been known to grind a slight angle on the end of my stock to hold it in the chuck and be able to set the taper, then face it off after I'm finished.

Mark Frazier
 
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