Simple and cheap taper gauges.......

[brino]

Years ago when I was trying to find B&S #11 taper tooling for my mill I wanted a quick way to help me sort tapers.
(https://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/my-1916-cincinnati-3s-milling-machine.364/)

I looked around for a cheap set of taper gauges and found nothing useful for Morse and B&S sizes.

So I thought I'd try making some.
These are NOT meant to be used for comparison when cutting a taper, but only to help ID what is in the used tools bin at the tool store.
They've been very useful for that.

I took a sheet of plastic, got out my Machinery's Handbook and drew centre lines, and then measured out the taper sizes and lengths from the centre line.
I cut them out with an x-acto knife and ruler.
This left me with both male and female "gauges".

Morse:




B&S:




If I was to redo it today I'd probably 3D-print some gauges, but I did not have that ability years ago.......

-brino

 

[Latinrascalrg1]

For some reason my minds eye seen it a different way when you first mentioned doing this. I visualized you where "Warping" the material around/into the taper to measure and i thought that was a good Idea but now seeing what you meant and now I kick myself for looking past the more Obvious and superior method!

Thanks for Sharing.

 

[hman]

Durn! Absolutely great idea and execution. Maybe send the photos to Little Machine Shop or PM, and see if they can put something like this into production.