Here
are some pictures of my shop and equipment. These things are
in a spare room in my house. I have other equipment for different
kinds of work out in a separate shop next to the house. All of the
projects on these pages were made on the machines you see here. I
use Sherline equipment, as most of my projects are small scale, but the
brand doesn't matter. Machine tools are pretty much universal.
When I have larger projects to machine, I have other resources.
Here are pictures
of the lathe and mill. You can't tell by the pictures, but they are
only
about two feet apart. All of my tools are in a tool box at the left
of the lathe. See the
Sherline link on the links page for more about this brand of machines.
Other brands of
machines can be found by checking out the discussion links on the links
page.
One
of the first things I made after I got the mill was an end mill holder.
On my larger
machines, tooling is very common, and because of that, usually less expensive.
Sherline
uses standard Morse tapers in their machines, but since they are small,
they are not found
at any old machine shop. Now, I could buy the mill holder from Sherline,
but I've got
these machines sittin' here, see? A piece of leaded steel rod and
an hour and a half later
and I'm in business. The picture shows the result of my efforts.
Machining sequence
follows for anyone who wants to give it a try. This method relies
on copying the taper of
another item. Some would say this is not the proper way to do it,
and they may be right!
However, for someone needing this item, the way described here may seem
less daunting
than searching through those fun tech manuals. Learning is an ongoing
process, and I've
learned that there is more than one way to skin this particular cat.
(Note: The measurements given here are for
a #1 morse taper meant for a Sherline
machine, BUT this procedure should be valid for
other machines. You will have to substitute
values given for the ones that suit your machines.)
First of all, you need a piece of round stock. I used leaded steel
for its easy machining
on the smaller machines, but most any steel that you can machine will work.
The piece of
stock I started with was 1 inch in diameter. I turned it down to
.800 in. and parted it off
at length of 2.4 in. (A parting tool project will be put up on this
site soon). Now that you
have a blank to start with, we need to set the head stock to cut a taper.
First we need something
to use as a guide to set the head stock. I used the threaded adapter
used to mount a drill chuck in the spindle of the lathe or mill on Sherline
machines. If you
have a different machine you will need to set the compound slide instead
of the head stock.
Grip the threaded portion of the adapter in the three jaw with the mating
surface of the
adapter flush with the jaws. Don't tighten the jaws any more than
needed to avoid damaging
the threads. Now rotate the head about 1 to 1 1/2 degrees as a starting
point. Indicate the
length of the taper and change the head stock (or compound) as needed until
your indicator
reads the same from one end of the taper to the other. Now the correct
angle is set. Remove
the adapter and chuck the blank in the three jaw.
The next step is to drill and tap the end of the taper so the draw bar
can pull it into the
spindle.
Well, its done!
I have made a few of these for different size mills. It doesn't take
long, (even for a
slow poke like me), and once they're made they should last as long as you
do!
Questions
or Comments?
deanw@valint.net
