- Joined
- Oct 31, 2016
- Messages
- 2,643
This is not going to be a long drawn out thread. I have been looking at lots of plans for what I call your traditional taper attachment. The kind where you have a flat bar mounted behind the lathe that controls the taper. My question is how precise does that flat bar have to be? I know that the front and back edges need to be parallel. And that the edges need to be flat and straight. But how straight and how parallel? Are we talking about a tolerance of .010, .001 or .0001.
I am thinking about having 3 bars. A short one no more than 12" long for steep tapers. One as long as the travel on my mill/drill which would be around 16" long. And a third bar as long what will fit behind my 12 x 36 lathe.
The short and medium bars I don't think will be a problem for me to make. I won't have to move the bar to machine both side in one setup. The long bar is another story. The first 16" will be just like making the medium bar. After that I will have to move the bar and somehow dial it in several times. I think that I can do this as long as the tolerance can be within a thousand or two.
I also don't know how much load will be applied against the bar. Can anybody help me figure this out. Once I know the load I can put the load into my bending stress spreadsheet to get an idea of the dimensions for the bar. I could just go way over size. Would rather have bars sized for the anticipated loads.
I am thinking about having 3 bars. A short one no more than 12" long for steep tapers. One as long as the travel on my mill/drill which would be around 16" long. And a third bar as long what will fit behind my 12 x 36 lathe.
The short and medium bars I don't think will be a problem for me to make. I won't have to move the bar to machine both side in one setup. The long bar is another story. The first 16" will be just like making the medium bar. After that I will have to move the bar and somehow dial it in several times. I think that I can do this as long as the tolerance can be within a thousand or two.
I also don't know how much load will be applied against the bar. Can anybody help me figure this out. Once I know the load I can put the load into my bending stress spreadsheet to get an idea of the dimensions for the bar. I could just go way over size. Would rather have bars sized for the anticipated loads.