Showed you to the Ex wife, she is now kinda interested in my hobby shop. After many years she referred to it as "his machine shop" instead of "he's in that shed as always." Thanks, keep doing what your doing. Your channel and Mr Pete's are my two go to channels.
Dear Quinn: thank you for your scrupulously detailed, unhurried descriptions of how to do things. Sometimes the other utube teachers forget the very front end of that learning curve, which can be very steep. Love your videos, thank you.
Great timing. I just completed a 3” per foot taper using the compound. 7.125 degrees. I made a matching angle, used a magnet and aficed it to the compound to set it up accurately. Turned out perfect. I have never used the tail stock method. Well done, thank you
Extremely cool. I have cut some long tapers on rifle barrels but I just went for what was pleasing to the eye, I never bothered much with the math. It's handy to know how to do it right!
Hi Quinn Youve made my mind up.Im gonna use the tailstock method to turn the con rod on the Stuart beam engine simply because using the cross slide, As you pointed out so well, limits the length of taper.As this is for aesthetics only it works well and,as you pointed out,helps get me used to checking and resetting the tailstock. Which i do all the time🤭 All the best and kind regards
Your testing of course also depends upon the accuracy of the socket and hobby lathes can also be less than great in that regard. May you also live long and prosper so we can see a whole lot more of your excellent instruction!
I really wish I had a bigger shop. My grandfather had a metal lathe in his shop. When he passed away, it got sold to a friend of ours. Well now that friend has passed away. We have Grandpa's torch set and his old Lincoln welder at home in my dad's shop. I would really love to bring that old lathe back home, but I have no where to put it, nor does my dad. It's a Colchester lathe. Dominion 15x48. Colchester lathe company. England. One of these days hopefully I will be able to afford a small hobby lathe. It would be nice for me to be able to turn motor shafts and maybe make a ring or two.
Having an aged Drummond round bed aligning the tailstock involves it rotating round the bed if I'm not careful which isn't that great for height either but you have motivated me to check!
Hi Quinn, Another great video! Really solid information. "Whether you are handling honey, tar, dung, or Prussian Blue, a little sticks to your fingers." Or, at least that's how I remember Mark Twain said it. 😎 Be well & Best regards, Gottfried
hi.. great vid. you could use a boring tool with an MT in the tail stock and ball bearings both ends this saves you from having to adjust your tail stock set up with 50thou per inch if you have the lath with dro...give it a try
Was considering a Proxxon PD400 for myself, what finally discouraged my was that the tailstock is a non-adjustable aluminium casting. Not only that I lose the ability for tapers, but also there will likely always be a taper I don't want...
One of my lathes is a CVA. The British version of the Monarch 10ee. Stunning lathe. Weighs 1600kg or 3520lbs and yet it only has a MT2 tailstock. Crazy!
Haha my little sherline tilts its whole head to cut centers so its pretty precise, I like it. Though this is helpful for when I get a bigger machine, which is of course a cheap import.
Oh yeah prussian blue. That stuff is a pain, there's a fine line between to thick and to thin a coat also, especially when your so call buddies smear a dab on the sweat band of your hard hat! or under the handle of your tool box. But hey what are friends for...right!😃 Nice vid Quinn thanks
Regarding parallax... Why don't instrument manufacturers use mirrored scales, like in many older analog Volt Ohm Meters? My Simpson 260 with a Series 8 replacement meter movement is a fine example. Reading the mirror, which is on the same plane as the scale, eliminates parallax error.
Since the piece is at an angle doesn’t that mean the centers at each end are shifting on the points as it rotates and creating friction? Reason I’m asking is that I have seen others use high pressure grease in those points and was wondering if that was why.
Grease is used if the part is spinning relative to the center. I’m using a live center on the tail stock and the spindle center is spinning with the part. No grease required.
As always I learn so much from you... but I have to say that "aligning your tail stock" to someone who is not a machinist (maybe a future machinist?) might have a different meaning... I do see a chiropractor and he's always aligning something in my lower spine... does that count?
The combined influence of the US and her powerful allies, Myanmar and Liberia, will undoubtedly lead to the uptake of the imperial system throughout the world.
I recently spent a whole afternoon chasing acceptable tailstock alignment before discovering that the tailstock was 5 thou too low. I had to drink a tin of beer to get the right shim to correct it :-)
You didn't say "Yahtzee!" after parting the first taper! I'm unsubscribing right now! 😡 Just kidding Quinn, another awesome and informative video, I found the between centers method to be very interesting! Cheers!
One of my first projects was to cut a number 2 for my lathe. I had found a Jacobs chuck with a 3 taper. So with out having Quin to show me how I had to struggle a lot to get it mostly correct. Good thing the taper was the same so I had the angle built in. Stupid method of paper feeler gauge front and back till I was lined up tap tap. Yes I had no test indicator then. If I had seen your method 5 years ago I could have saved 27% of my hair. Thanks for the great instruction. Knowing a better way is always gooder.
Quinn, I second the last comment! Your ability to hold the interest of a seasoned machinist yet inspire a newbie, amateur, beginner "like me", makes me feel like "I can do this"! Thanks for all your inspiring videos and articulate explanations so those of us not so experienced can advance. I'm very excited for the episodes I have not yet viewed!
This is ridiculously good timing ! A project where I need to make a taper just came up and I had a plan on what I was going to do , but I always learn a lot from your videos and I am certain my project will turn out better now or at least be easier!
Sometimes RUclips's ability to pop something up at the right time is scary...! Scout's honour, I haven't used my lathe in years but was planning on making some tapers this coming weekend. And up this pops! How? I ask you, how did my mind get read...?
Thanks for showing how simple, and non-frightening doing tapers on a lathe can be! 🤓 🤔But something seems like it's missing from this video, something that you rarely miss - you doing ok?! That's it! You missed a "Yahtzee"! Lol😅😁
A long time ago (55 years to be more exact) I was taught to make a taper on a lathe but using a grinding wheel fixed on the compound slide rather that a tool bit. It produced a brilliant surface finish! The use of grinding wheels on lathes does not seem to be popular anymore but I would appreciate a video on this technique if possible using a Dremel rotary tool or a similar device.
I made a toolpost grinder using a 600 watt 12000 rpm motor with a VFD. The bearings in it are remarkably good and it comes with an ER11 collet, so like a muscly version of a Dremel in a machined aluminium shell. I don't use it often but it produces a surprisingly good finish. Next plan is to add a proper spindle based on a very long shaft ER16 chuck with serious bearings and stepped pulleys, but for now, this simple thing works well. I'd love to see Quinn make one, it's a niche tool, but the finish is just to die for.
@@MachiningandMicrowaves I have just finished mounting a 2HP 5300 RPM treadmill motor in place of the cross slide so that the motor shaft is on center. The grinding or milling tool mounts directly onto the spindle shaft with an adapter. I made the adapter with an internal 16 degree taper for an ER32 collet holder, and threaded the outside to take the nut from my other ER32 collet holder. The other end of the adapter has a hole turned to match the motor shaft. I plan to make a RUclips video about that. It could be fitted with a PWM DC speed controller eventually.
There's uses for that, but one has to be careful in preventing the abrasive dust from getting into the ways. I recently used a tiny grinder to true up a sprung three jaw that had considerable runout. Made a holder for a cheap pen-sized air grinder that takes Dremel bits, the whole grinder has a small enough diameter to clear the inside of my chuck so I could grind the whole depth of the jaws. The cheap grinder doesn't have the greatest bearings, but it worked well enough. Preloaded the jaws before grinding of course, with three bits of flat iron clamped between the angled sides of the jaws. It took a while because I could only take the tiniest of cuts without stalling the grinder, but now my "worn out" chuck runs dead nuts true again. I think I can forsee some other uses for that grinder attachment, like reshaping broken drill bits into various tooling.
Thanks for a good taper making presentation. There was one thing that You forgot, probably because it is so obvious. When measuring the taper, the vertical position of the measuring instrument point, needle or plunger, must be quite exactly at the centre height. This becomes more important when the workpiece diameter is small. At first thought it seems like this wouldn't matter and actually when measuring to get rid of the taper, it really doesn't. However, when trying to copy or set up the taper by numbers, a misaligned tip will result in a wrong angle since the radius changes. With small tapers like MT1 this can be significant. When copying a taper, the measuring tip doesn't need to be at the centre height. Actually it must be at the same height as the tip of the cutting tool. In practise this will be the centre height though.
One thing that was causing me some grief on my first tapers was the importance of tool center height. You really need to nail it or you'll cut a parabolic curve instead of a straight taper. I chased my own tail a bit with setting the taper up before I realized what was going on. No matter how careful you are setting the taper on the compound you can get a bad blue up with little contact if the surface is curved. Same goes for measuring the initial taper: if the indicator tip isn't exactly on center you will measure a parabolic curve. One workaround for the tool center height issue is to use a tool with a slanted cutting edge that makes an oblique contact with the work. That way you are cutting along an edge and not a point. Usually not desireable but it will save your bacon in this case. Tilt the cutting edge towards the chuck. Thanks for a good breakdown! As usual.
Heartily agree getting over the fear aspect and how easy it really is to do the re-alignment. Two things I learned when doing some MT3 tapers a few years back. First is that making a stub for the eventual tang or threaded draw bar hole on the end gave me more room for the cutting tool when working the small end at the live center. And we need that stub for one of those jobs anyway. Might as well put it in early and make it useful, right? The second thing I picked up was thanks to not having any prussian blue at the time. So instead I put three or four strokes of felt marker on the taper, set it in a socket very lightly and twisted a half turn. This wore off the marker on the high spots and I was able to use a wide lathe file to dress these wider spots down by that last tenth or so. A couple of repeats on this step and I was getting at least SOME marker removal along the whole length. This made for a very easy lock to the socket. One area of error I did pick up is that when using the indicator on the taper it was incredibly important to have the ball end of the stem dead on the center height. Even a small error in this will lead to the taper being off by a bit. But only when using a taper as the sample. For a cylinder like your second offset tailstock method it's not an issue. Hope that helps everyone.
I think the weak link when testing your tapers is the tailstock. I have the same lathe (PM1030) and the surface finish inside the tailstock could definitely be improved.
Yes, even on big machines the inside taper on the tailstock can be pretty nasty. Either from sloppy manufacturing or from wear, if a tool has been accidentally spun or has been inserted with a bit of grit or a chip in there. My old TOS lathe has a MT4 tailstock, I was making an adaptor for cheaper MT3 tooling and was wondering why I couldn't get good surface contact. Until I stuck a finger in there and felt all the gouges and ridges, it seems like the factory used a dull reamer or were dragging chips around in there or something.
A hack method I used was: I had a piece of factory Morse taper tooling that had center holes at both ends. I chucked it between centers and indicated in the compound angle with that. This resulted in piece with about 80% contact when blued up and tested which I was understandably quite pleased with myself for. I'm dyslectic so math and I are not best of friends, so I end up trying anything to avoid too much math.
@@davidtaylor6124 I also turned a bunch of tool holders for our #30 taper milling machine. I roughed every thing out, and, as they were being turned between centers, I could take them off the lathe and check them against the mill spindle with bluing until I had proper setting on the compound. I then turned a fixture for the lathe that matched the mill taper to hold all the rough tool holders in the lathe for final turning. Again, I was quite pleased with myself!
What if my tailstock is a giant hexagonal turret thats only used for drilling rough cut cast iron with a .125" tolerance? i should probably make sure it's aligned anyway, that's good advice no matter what, fine, you win this round! I've been trying to find a good way to modify a bit of tooling to turn a straight shank into a morse taper, but i was a bit scared of monumentally screwing up. i may try it again some time! thanks for demonstrating this!
After twelve years working in a machine shop, I went back to school to finish my BS in engineering. While there I worked on multiple projects as club machinist-for-hire. Every afternoon I would go to the shop to start working, and it never failed that someone had messed with the tailstock. Aligning it day after day, I got very good, and very annoyed! They had been demonstrating and practicing the tailstock offset tapers in classes, but not requiring students to realign everything. An essential skill, as you say, a machinist should not be afraid to learn. Thanks for the excellent demos!
I came in from the shop and tuned into this video. I just completed a small production run (20 pieces) of Morse Taper no.1. You did a good explanation on the set up.
10:16 she said millimeter.The metric system shines through,making me smile...............although quarterpounders with cheese make me smile also....i am torn back and forth
I like to turn a small area on the minor diameter as well as the major to a nominal size. That way when you drop the tool there is less of a chance to damage the ends of the taper. No fun stoning off a bur that is throwing the taper off.
Happy new year to you Quinn from England UK. Thank you for this video and especially for something else you always do. What is that I hear you ask? Well I'll tell you. You always list below all the tools that you use and where you bought them along with any links to previous instruction related videos that you have produced. I've changed computers and lost all my old bookmarks because I didn't back anything up and I wanted and found the original lathe alignment video you did which was very useful to me. Thank you for the professional way in which you conduct your tutorials on this channel. These two videos are just the ticket for my next job, thank you once again. I'll also take this time to wish all your RUclips followers a happy new year as well.
You are correct - I have not realigned my tailstock. I did however manage to take the bend out of my lead screw that had a .012 bow in it - that saved me from paying $500.+ for a replacement.
Great info. A tip if you ever will use a wedge to remove the taper, turn the end a little smaller, that way the fit wont be destroyed if the edge is deformed by the wedge
@Quin Blond Individual 3:36 Unacceptable!!! Thou shall have two courses of action produce a metric video OR be GUILTY of metricsasim (That's BAD if you don't know! ) - Discriminating against the better system! Could get reported to RUclips and Banished! you know! The Rest metricsasim is a word alternatively be call a Grammar Nazi (Also BAD)
@@jimmyswollnuts7662 SO you say even though you define your banana system with metric in your laws and standards. Joking aside, it really is easier to use.. there is a good video on Australia when they converted. All house plans are in mm it saved them a lot of money. (Thats like using a 1/millions\ dial indicator drive you mad) You get the metric and inch measuring tapes and Americans proved that people made more mistakes when having both :) Oh and Elon Musk started out in metric learned banana as an adult.. I refuse ! if its in banana just chuck it and get a metric one.
@@DawidKellerman I don't think the Wright brothers used the metric system when they learned how to fly. Nor did the US Govt when they split the atom. Has Australia invented anything meaningful? With your elementary metric system? You know... like electricity, the radio, TV, telephones, cell phones, personal computers microwave ovens........ small things like that
I have an unusual MT-2 tailstock center that has a micrometer style of adjustment to offset it. I got it decades ago with an Emco Super 11 lathe. I have never seen one since. It works well for small tapers just like tailstock offset does but you don't have to upset your tailstock. I wonder why they aren't more readily available.
I had one but when I sold my bigger lathe I threw it in along with some tooling. But instead of centers in it I used half inch dowel pins with steel balls from ball bearings soldered in them. The adjustable center was actually a boring head. Too much offset with conventional centers just wears the center in the part out. Plus high pressure grease on the centers.
Very interesting video, when I make Morse tapers I don't use the tailstock, just use a Morse tapers sleeve & when blueing it you can give it a twist it will give much better result as a test, hope this helps 🇬🇧👍.
Great video . I made my first taper with compound method . Was not real great ,however I'm fortunate enough to have Cincinnati Cutter and Tool Grinder and was able to salvage me efforts !!!
Perfect timing, just the wrong side of the machine. I was hoping you’d cover ‘internal’ tapering as I currently have a project to fix a poor quality ER32 fixture. I’ll use a small boring bar at 8’. What could possibly go wrong? Live long and prosper. R
Just my thoughts. The mentioned, commercial ones. Are they a known brand, or as the lathe, some cheap china ones? Can't test with equiptment like this. And a taper should fit on the whole area.
Excellent video as always. Make sure your indicator is touching the center of your part and use as thin an application of blue as possible to achieve the most accurate representation of contact.
I recently placed an order on a 1022 Precision Matthews Lathe. Your videos are really inspiring. They should give you a commission. I wonder, what your thoughts are on a Lathe DRO. I don't recall you mentioning in other videos.
If you can afford a dro, I would recommend it, if for no other reason than to provide a sanity check. Also, if you get Matt and his team to install it for you, you won't have to worry with broken bits or other installation issues. My recommendation if you choose to get a dro is to try measuring everything with micrometers and your dials and use the dro to confirm whether or not you measured correctly or moved things correctly.
The DRO should have dip switches to compensate for any variance in the readout display. Personally I don't like DROs on lathes. I much prefer a Trav-a-dial. Easier to see when you are coming up on your number. Obsolete technology now.
@@zackraymond4603 If you have the space and the extra $2 or 3 hundred, I would go for the longer bed. Even if you are planning to always do short work now. The actual length of work you can do is less than the 20"!
Is the boring head method of tailstock shift rigid enough on small lathes like this? Certainly seems itd beat out actually adjusting the tailstock if so
Just a quick note to confirm your thought. I have used my MT2 mounted boring head with a home made centre (turned onto the shank of an old boring bar) to easily manufacture several nice MT3 tapers on my 7x14 mini lathe. Just set up the boring head so the adjustment direction is perpendicular to the lathe bed. Then roughly align the headstock and tailstock centres and adjust to the required offset on the boring bar . Fine tune the taper by running a short test cut and reset the boring head using a dial indicator mounted on the lathe carriage to accurately adjust the boring head for the offset required.
Immaculate tutorial Quinn, thank you as always. When I think how much I've relied on tapers I'm ashamed of how poorly I understood them. Time for me to make some tool holding!
Thank you for this helpful, well-made video. As a suggestion, I've found that radiused center drills (they have an "R" as a suffix) produce center holes that greatly reduce wear on the lathe centers, a common issue with this taper turning technique when straight 60 degree center holes are used.
That's what normally being used when turning tapers between centers. Especially when doing larger shafts that weight allot. Else it will destroy the center quickly.
Here I was just pondering making some soft-ish MT2 stubs; someone else had the idea of putting a center drill directly into one to save time tightening a chuck. Thank you for the clear, easy-to-absorb lesson 🙂
For home shop use mild steel is fine. We tend to care for our stuff unlike students in a shool shop or workers in a plant environment. Some MT3 arbors I did in mild steel worked fine for many years on my old mill drill. So go for it!
Meanwhile...over at the mill... I do something similar, with a spotting drill, countersink, etc... in larger home-made sleeves that fit commonly used collets (3/8", 1/2") to save using the Jacobs chuck. Tool changes go faster without all that table lowering and raising, and moving away from the vise/job for clearance.
I used one I made for myself from unhardened 4140 at work for years , it was a MT5 for a #5 center drill if I remember correctly and it was in the same condition as the day I made after years of use.
when I was an apprentice many many years ago in the radio/TV field, I was told: if you want to make an oscillator, try to make an amplifier... so it seems: if you want to turn a taper, try to turn a parallel shaft...
It’s a good thing your doing this on a video otherwise you could explain until your BLUE in the face to some of these true BLUE HOBBYISTS which in turn would turn you BLUE with frustration! And on that BLUE note I thank you ! 😜 this is truly a BLUE ribbon video in my book ! ( which is , you guessed BLUE ) I’m sorry you bring out the …….. ?!$@&” in me !
"Indicators are pretty limited in how long they can get" Maybe but I have a 125mm travel Starrett which is usually enough. The thing is 500mm long which can be a bit of a pain.
![Cody Johnson - I'm Gonna Love You (with Carrie Underwood) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yy9PuYMU29g/mqdefault.jpg)
Showed you to the Ex wife, she is now kinda interested in my hobby shop. After many years she referred to it as "his machine shop" instead of "he's in that shed as always."
Thanks, keep doing what your doing. Your channel and Mr Pete's are my two go to channels.
Dear Quinn: thank you for your scrupulously detailed, unhurried descriptions of how to do things. Sometimes the other utube teachers forget the very front end of that learning curve, which can be very steep. Love your videos, thank you.
Great timing. I just completed a 3” per foot taper using the compound. 7.125 degrees. I made a matching angle, used a magnet and aficed it to the compound to set it up accurately.
Turned out perfect.
I have never used the tail stock method.
Well done, thank you
Extremely cool. I have cut some long tapers on rifle barrels but I just went for what was pleasing to the eye, I never bothered much with the math. It's handy to know how to do it right!
My lathes are not small hobby ones but still love learning from your videos!
Enjoy your videos more and more.
Eloquent voice and motivational topics with tangible results.
Hi Quinn
Youve made my mind up.Im gonna use the tailstock method to turn the con rod on the Stuart beam engine simply because using the cross slide,
As you pointed out so well, limits the length of taper.As this is for aesthetics only it works well and,as you pointed out,helps get me used to checking and resetting the tailstock.
Which i do all the time🤭
All the best and kind regards
Your testing of course also depends upon the accuracy of the socket and hobby lathes can also be less than great in that regard. May you also live long and prosper so we can see a whole lot more of your excellent instruction!
Yay! It's Blondihacks time!!
I really wish I had a bigger shop. My grandfather had a metal lathe in his shop. When he passed away, it got sold to a friend of ours. Well now that friend has passed away. We have Grandpa's torch set and his old Lincoln welder at home in my dad's shop. I would really love to bring that old lathe back home, but I have no where to put it, nor does my dad. It's a Colchester lathe. Dominion 15x48. Colchester lathe company. England. One of these days hopefully I will be able to afford a small hobby lathe. It would be nice for me to be able to turn motor shafts and maybe make a ring or two.
Wish you would have done this a week ago, I JUST finished making a live center with a MT2 taper. For my lathe.
Having an aged Drummond round bed aligning the tailstock involves it rotating round the bed if I'm not careful which isn't that great for height either but you have motivated me to check!
Great video for someone with a passing interest like me. Thanks.
Hi Quinn, Another great video! Really solid information. "Whether you are handling honey, tar, dung, or Prussian Blue, a little sticks to your fingers." Or, at least that's how I remember Mark Twain said it. 😎 Be well & Best regards, Gottfried
Thank you for another entertaining and useful machining video
hi.. great vid. you could use a boring tool with an MT in the tail stock and ball bearings both ends this saves you from having to adjust your tail stock set up with 50thou per inch if you have the lath with dro...give it a try
Because of you! I know say "Tappity -Tap -Tap"!
Was considering a Proxxon PD400 for myself, what finally discouraged my was that the tailstock is a non-adjustable aluminium casting.
Not only that I lose the ability for tapers, but also there will likely always be a taper I don't want...
Can we see more of Sprocket please
One of my lathes is a CVA. The British version of the Monarch 10ee. Stunning lathe. Weighs 1600kg or 3520lbs and yet it only has a MT2 tailstock. Crazy!
Haha my little sherline tilts its whole head to cut centers so its pretty precise, I like it. Though this is helpful for when I get a bigger machine, which is of course a cheap import.
Seems like you could use lapping compound to get your taper to fit better.
Oh yeah prussian blue. That stuff is a pain, there's a fine line between to thick and to thin a coat also, especially when your so call buddies smear a dab on the sweat band of your hard hat! or under the handle of your tool box. But hey what are friends for...right!😃 Nice vid Quinn thanks
Thanks Auntie !!
Should the tailstock be aligned before you start? Love the video!
Great as always👌
I think it has been 15 years since I last aligned my tailstock. I promise to do it after I rearrange the workshop…..
Thanks
Regarding parallax... Why don't instrument manufacturers use mirrored scales, like in many older analog Volt Ohm Meters? My Simpson 260 with a Series 8 replacement meter movement is a fine example. Reading the mirror, which is on the same plane as the scale, eliminates parallax error.
Excellent explaination. Thank you.
Hi Quinn, thank you for that would like to see some internal tapers, please.
I would question the quill taper being off.
I check/zero my tailstock with an indicator in the headstock. Sweep the tailstock socket. No test bar needed. Am I missing something?
That’s a very short range of measurement. You want to measure over the longest distance you can for maximum detection of error
Since the piece is at an angle doesn’t that mean the centers at each end are shifting on the points as it rotates and creating friction? Reason I’m asking is that I have seen others use high pressure grease in those points and was wondering if that was why.
Grease is used if the part is spinning relative to the center. I’m using a live center on the tail stock and the spindle center is spinning with the part. No grease required.
Wait, What? "Orthogonal?
Pauses video, hits Teh Google.
Daddy learned a new word today.
Dang you are smart..
Great video!
As always I learn so much from you... but I have to say that "aligning your tail stock" to someone who is not a machinist (maybe a future machinist?) might have a different meaning... I do see a chiropractor and he's always aligning something in my lower spine... does that count?
Dear Quinn, hope you are fine. I like to know how to turn one end of a I" round bar to a pointed end like an upside down v. Thank you , warm regards.
Like this at one end ∆
Never apologize for imperial measurements! We all know it's the best system and the metric people just need adapt.
The combined influence of the US and her powerful allies, Myanmar and Liberia, will undoubtedly lead to the uptake of the imperial system throughout the world.
"Turning a taper is so easy there's a good chance your lathe is already doing it without you knowing."
-TOT
100% chance, different thing how much
Oh trust me Tony, I know it does..
Haha! That’s funny!
Gee I cut tapers all the time unfortunately they are supposed to be straight.
I recently spent a whole afternoon chasing acceptable tailstock alignment before discovering that the tailstock was 5 thou too low. I had to drink a tin of beer to get the right shim to correct it :-)
the sacrifices we have to make for our hobby!
One reason its handy to have a pack of shim stock.
you are lucky. too low is an easy fix. my tailstock was 0.3 mm too high. It took several bottles of beer to shim the headstock up :)
@@mpetersen6 I abused a feeler gauge :)
Lucky it wasn't 125 thou too low eh?
No Yahtzee...? That's...that's not ...tradition...
Am I the only one dumbfounded when Quinn forgot to say yahtzee?
Thats the second time she's done that. I would have thought that Sprocket would have caught it in the edit! :-)
Your videos inspire me to push my little hobby lathe and myself- something that can be intimidating as a beginner. Thanks, you are awesome!
@blondihacks Umm. Noticed the conspicuous absence of your usual "aaaaaaaaand . . . Yahtzee!" at 13:54. So disappointed. : )
You didn't say "Yahtzee!" after parting the first taper! I'm unsubscribing right now! 😡
Just kidding Quinn, another awesome and informative video, I found the between centers method to be very interesting! Cheers!
One of my first projects was to cut a number 2 for my lathe. I had found a Jacobs chuck with a 3 taper. So with out having Quin to show me how I had to struggle a lot to get it mostly correct. Good thing the taper was the same so I had the angle built in.
Stupid method of paper feeler gauge front and back till I was lined up tap tap. Yes I had no test indicator then.
If I had seen your method 5 years ago I could have saved 27% of my hair.
Thanks for the great instruction. Knowing a better way is always gooder.
Quinn, I second the last comment! Your ability to hold the interest of a seasoned machinist yet inspire a newbie, amateur, beginner "like me", makes me feel like "I can do this"! Thanks for all your inspiring videos and articulate explanations so those of us not so experienced can advance. I'm very excited for the episodes I have not yet viewed!
This is ridiculously good timing !
A project where I need to make a taper just came up and I had a plan on what I was going to do , but I always learn a lot from your videos and I am certain my project will turn out better now or at least be easier!
Sometimes RUclips's ability to pop something up at the right time is scary...!
Scout's honour, I haven't used my lathe in years but was planning on making some tapers this coming weekend. And up this pops!
How? I ask you, how did my mind get read...?
Excellent!! I am impressed not only by your knowledge but your ability to teach us in such a clear and enjoyable way.
Thanks for showing how simple, and non-frightening doing tapers on a lathe can be! 🤓
🤔But something seems like it's missing from this video, something that you rarely miss - you doing ok?! That's it! You missed a "Yahtzee"! Lol😅😁
A long time ago (55 years to be more exact) I was taught to make a taper on a lathe but using a grinding wheel fixed on the compound slide rather that a tool bit. It produced a brilliant surface finish! The use of grinding wheels on lathes does not seem to be popular anymore but I would appreciate a video on this technique if possible using a Dremel rotary tool or a similar device.
I made a toolpost grinder using a 600 watt 12000 rpm motor with a VFD. The bearings in it are remarkably good and it comes with an ER11 collet, so like a muscly version of a Dremel in a machined aluminium shell. I don't use it often but it produces a surprisingly good finish. Next plan is to add a proper spindle based on a very long shaft ER16 chuck with serious bearings and stepped pulleys, but for now, this simple thing works well. I'd love to see Quinn make one, it's a niche tool, but the finish is just to die for.
@@MachiningandMicrowaves I have just finished mounting a 2HP 5300 RPM treadmill motor in place of the cross slide so that the motor shaft is on center. The grinding or milling tool mounts directly onto the spindle shaft with an adapter. I made the adapter with an internal 16 degree taper for an ER32 collet holder, and threaded the outside to take the nut from my other ER32 collet holder. The other end of the adapter has a hole turned to match the motor shaft. I plan to make a RUclips video about that. It could be fitted with a PWM DC speed controller eventually.
There's uses for that, but one has to be careful in preventing the abrasive dust from getting into the ways.
I recently used a tiny grinder to true up a sprung three jaw that had considerable runout. Made a holder for a cheap pen-sized air grinder that takes Dremel bits, the whole grinder has a small enough diameter to clear the inside of my chuck so I could grind the whole depth of the jaws. The cheap grinder doesn't have the greatest bearings, but it worked well enough. Preloaded the jaws before grinding of course, with three bits of flat iron clamped between the angled sides of the jaws. It took a while because I could only take the tiniest of cuts without stalling the grinder, but now my "worn out" chuck runs dead nuts true again. I think I can forsee some other uses for that grinder attachment, like reshaping broken drill bits into various tooling.
Thanks for a good taper making presentation.
There was one thing that You forgot, probably because it is so obvious. When measuring the taper, the vertical position of the measuring instrument point, needle or plunger, must be quite exactly at the centre height. This becomes more important when the workpiece diameter is small.
At first thought it seems like this wouldn't matter and actually when measuring to get rid of the taper, it really doesn't. However, when trying to copy or set up the taper by numbers, a misaligned tip will result in a wrong angle since the radius changes. With small tapers like MT1 this can be significant.
When copying a taper, the measuring tip doesn't need to be at the centre height. Actually it must be at the same height as the tip of the cutting tool. In practise this will be the centre height though.
I second this
This is very important
One thing that was causing me some grief on my first tapers was the importance of tool center height. You really need to nail it or you'll cut a parabolic curve instead of a straight taper. I chased my own tail a bit with setting the taper up before I realized what was going on. No matter how careful you are setting the taper on the compound you can get a bad blue up with little contact if the surface is curved. Same goes for measuring the initial taper: if the indicator tip isn't exactly on center you will measure a parabolic curve. One workaround for the tool center height issue is to use a tool with a slanted cutting edge that makes an oblique contact with the work. That way you are cutting along an edge and not a point. Usually not desireable but it will save your bacon in this case. Tilt the cutting edge towards the chuck.
Thanks for a good breakdown! As usual.
Heartily agree getting over the fear aspect and how easy it really is to do the re-alignment.
Two things I learned when doing some MT3 tapers a few years back. First is that making a stub for the eventual tang or threaded draw bar hole on the end gave me more room for the cutting tool when working the small end at the live center. And we need that stub for one of those jobs anyway. Might as well put it in early and make it useful, right? The second thing I picked up was thanks to not having any prussian blue at the time. So instead I put three or four strokes of felt marker on the taper, set it in a socket very lightly and twisted a half turn. This wore off the marker on the high spots and I was able to use a wide lathe file to dress these wider spots down by that last tenth or so. A couple of repeats on this step and I was getting at least SOME marker removal along the whole length. This made for a very easy lock to the socket.
One area of error I did pick up is that when using the indicator on the taper it was incredibly important to have the ball end of the stem dead on the center height. Even a small error in this will lead to the taper being off by a bit. But only when using a taper as the sample. For a cylinder like your second offset tailstock method it's not an issue.
Hope that helps everyone.
I thought the phrase 'not too shabby' was a UKism - seems to have got across the Atlantic.
Or should that be 'gotten'?
Good stuff Quinn. How is a MT 0 socket made? Boring bars need to be quite small and frightfully long. Drill in steps then taper ream?
Yup, you got it! Reamers are the way to make small internal tapers.
I think the weak link when testing your tapers is the tailstock. I have the same lathe (PM1030) and the surface finish inside the tailstock could definitely be improved.
Yes, even on big machines the inside taper on the tailstock can be pretty nasty. Either from sloppy manufacturing or from wear, if a tool has been accidentally spun or has been inserted with a bit of grit or a chip in there. My old TOS lathe has a MT4 tailstock, I was making an adaptor for cheaper MT3 tooling and was wondering why I couldn't get good surface contact. Until I stuck a finger in there and felt all the gouges and ridges, it seems like the factory used a dull reamer or were dragging chips around in there or something.
A hack method I used was: I had a piece of factory Morse taper tooling that had center holes at both ends. I chucked it between centers and indicated in the compound angle with that. This resulted in piece with about 80% contact when blued up and tested which I was understandably quite pleased with myself for. I'm dyslectic so math and I are not best of friends, so I end up trying anything to avoid too much math.
Pretty sure that is how I did the only morse taper I ever turned so far too.
@@davidtaylor6124 I also turned a bunch of tool holders for our #30 taper milling machine. I roughed every thing out, and, as they were being turned between centers, I could take them off the lathe and check them against the mill spindle with bluing until I had proper setting on the compound. I then turned a fixture for the lathe that matched the mill taper to hold all the rough tool holders in the lathe for final turning. Again, I was quite pleased with myself!
What if my tailstock is a giant hexagonal turret thats only used for drilling rough cut cast iron with a .125" tolerance? i should probably make sure it's aligned anyway, that's good advice no matter what, fine, you win this round!
I've been trying to find a good way to modify a bit of tooling to turn a straight shank into a morse taper, but i was a bit scared of monumentally screwing up. i may try it again some time! thanks for demonstrating this!
After twelve years working in a machine shop, I went back to school to finish my BS in engineering. While there I worked on multiple projects as club machinist-for-hire. Every afternoon I would go to the shop to start working, and it never failed that someone had messed with the tailstock. Aligning it day after day, I got very good, and very annoyed! They had been demonstrating and practicing the tailstock offset tapers in classes, but not requiring students to realign everything. An essential skill, as you say, a machinist should not be afraid to learn. Thanks for the excellent demos!
I came in from the shop and tuned into this video. I just completed a small production run (20 pieces) of Morse Taper no.1. You did a good explanation on the set up.
10:16 she said millimeter.The metric system shines through,making me smile...............although quarterpounders with cheese make me smile also....i am torn back and forth
I like to turn a small area on the minor diameter as well as the major to a nominal size. That way when you drop the tool there is less of a chance to damage the ends of the taper. No fun stoning off a bur that is throwing the taper off.
Happy new year to you Quinn from England UK. Thank you for this video and especially for something else you always do. What is that I hear you ask? Well I'll tell you. You always list below all the tools that you use and where you bought them along with any links to previous instruction related videos that you have produced. I've changed computers and lost all my old bookmarks because I didn't back anything up and I wanted and found the original lathe alignment video you did which was very useful to me. Thank you for the professional way in which you conduct your tutorials on this channel. These two videos are just the ticket for my next job, thank you once again. I'll also take this time to wish all your RUclips followers a happy new year as well.
You are correct - I have not realigned my tailstock. I did however manage to take the bend out of my lead screw that had a .012 bow in it - that saved me from paying $500.+ for a replacement.
No Yatzee?!? You're a monster. It's okay though, your voice in my head said it for you.
Here early. Yay. Im so stoked my first lathe is on its way. Ive learned so much from You.
Great info. A tip if you ever will use a wedge to remove the taper, turn the end a little smaller, that way the fit wont be destroyed if the edge is deformed by the wedge
I cut an ER16 taper and thread on an MT3 for my tailstock to make a VERY poor man's through-coolant set up to drill deep holes in titanium.
@Quin Blond Individual 3:36 Unacceptable!!! Thou shall have two courses of action produce a metric video OR be GUILTY of metricsasim (That's BAD if you don't know! ) - Discriminating against the better system! Could get reported to RUclips and Banished! you know!
The Rest metricsasim is a word alternatively be call a Grammar Nazi (Also BAD)
We use the system that is used by countries that have been to the moon.
@@jimmyswollnuts7662 SO you say even though you define your banana system with metric in your laws and standards. Joking aside, it really is easier to use.. there is a good video on Australia when they converted. All house plans are in mm it saved them a lot of money. (Thats like using a 1/millions\ dial indicator drive you mad) You get the metric and inch measuring tapes and Americans proved that people made more mistakes when having both :)
Oh and Elon Musk started out in metric learned banana as an adult.. I refuse ! if its in banana just chuck it and get a metric one.
@@DawidKellerman
I don't think the Wright brothers used the metric system when they learned how to fly. Nor did the US Govt when they split the atom. Has Australia invented anything meaningful? With your elementary metric system? You know... like electricity, the radio, TV, telephones, cell phones, personal computers microwave ovens........ small things like that
13:55 anybody missing the keyword too? Where is the Yatzee, Quinn?
Yes, mom, I'll check the tailstock alignment, soon. Promise.
I have an unusual MT-2 tailstock center that has a micrometer style of adjustment to offset it. I got it decades ago with an Emco Super 11 lathe. I have never seen one since. It works well for small tapers just like tailstock offset does but you don't have to upset your tailstock. I wonder why they aren't more readily available.
I had one but when I sold my bigger lathe I threw it in along with some tooling. But instead of centers in it I used half inch dowel pins with steel balls from ball bearings soldered in them. The adjustable center was actually a boring head. Too much offset with conventional centers just wears the center in the part out. Plus high pressure grease on the centers.
Thanks for the new video, may you live long and prosper too :)
Maybe a video on lapping the tapered parts for better fit. No Yahtzee after the cutoff drop. Your videos ares always amazing.
Where was our Yhatzee!? You dissapoint me, Quinn 😝🤣
Really interesting video that teaches! Thank you for sharing these methods and how tos!
Very interesting video, when I make Morse tapers I don't use the tailstock, just use a Morse tapers sleeve & when blueing it you can give it a twist it will give much better result as a test, hope this helps 🇬🇧👍.
Great video . I made my first taper with compound method . Was not real great ,however I'm fortunate enough to have Cincinnati Cutter and Tool Grinder and was able to salvage me efforts !!!
Perfect timing, just the wrong side of the machine.
I was hoping you’d cover ‘internal’ tapering as I currently have a project to fix a poor quality ER32 fixture. I’ll use a small boring bar at 8’. What could possibly go wrong? Live long and prosper. R
You can also get tapered reamers for many common tapers which is often the easiest way to do internal tapers. Bore it close (in steps) then ream it
You don't know what you can do until you try, and a lot of times that is all you need just try.
You got me... I dont think I have ever aligned my tail stock...or even checked it for that fact lol.
You're assuming that your cheap hobbyist import lathe's "MT2" tailstock is accurate. Just sayin'.
Just my thoughts. The mentioned, commercial ones. Are they a known brand, or as the lathe, some cheap china ones? Can't test with equiptment like this. And a taper should fit on the whole area.
Dang the amount of potential sex jokes in this video is astounding.
Excellent video as always. Make sure your indicator is touching the center of your part and use as thin an application of blue as possible to achieve the most accurate representation of contact.
And toss the Permatex. Dykem all the way. The Permatex is too oily.
realigning? In order to do that I'd have had to align it in the first place ahahahah.
No yatzee when the first taper part came off my night is ruined
I recently placed an order on a 1022 Precision Matthews Lathe. Your videos are really inspiring. They should give you a commission. I wonder, what your thoughts are on a Lathe DRO. I don't recall you mentioning in other videos.
If you can afford a dro, I would recommend it, if for no other reason than to provide a sanity check. Also, if you get Matt and his team to install it for you, you won't have to worry with broken bits or other installation issues.
My recommendation if you choose to get a dro is to try measuring everything with micrometers and your dials and use the dro to confirm whether or not you measured correctly or moved things correctly.
@@robertoswalt319 Thank you for the advice. I did elect for the installed DRO. I was wondering if I made the correct choice. Much appreciated.
The DRO should have dip switches to compensate for any variance in the readout display. Personally I don't like DROs on lathes. I much prefer a Trav-a-dial. Easier to see when you are coming up on your number. Obsolete technology now.
@@zackraymond4603 If you have the space and the extra $2 or 3 hundred, I would go for the longer bed. Even if you are planning to always do short work now. The actual length of work you can do is less than the 20"!
Blondie has a video on installing a DRO. I just happened to see it today and remembered watching it.
Dale in Canada
Is the boring head method of tailstock shift rigid enough on small lathes like this? Certainly seems itd beat out actually adjusting the tailstock if so
Just a quick note to confirm your thought. I have used my MT2 mounted boring head with a home made centre (turned onto the shank of an old boring bar) to easily manufacture several nice MT3 tapers on my 7x14 mini lathe.
Just set up the boring head so the adjustment direction is perpendicular to the lathe bed. Then roughly align the headstock and tailstock centres and adjust to the required offset on the boring bar . Fine tune the taper by running a short test cut and reset the boring head using a dial indicator mounted on the lathe carriage to accurately adjust the boring head for the offset required.
Immaculate tutorial Quinn, thank you as always. When I think how much I've relied on tapers I'm ashamed of how poorly I understood them. Time for me to make some tool holding!
and...................Bob's ur uncle. Great vid thanx.
It is 25 degrees in my workshop today. Too cold for a hobby machinist. Thank you for a vicarious machining experience.
Thank you for this helpful, well-made video. As a suggestion, I've found that radiused center drills (they have an "R" as a suffix) produce center holes that greatly reduce wear on the lathe centers, a common issue with this taper turning technique when straight 60 degree center holes are used.
That's what normally being used when turning tapers between centers. Especially when doing larger shafts that weight allot. Else it will destroy the center quickly.
@@OmeMachining Yup.
Here I was just pondering making some soft-ish MT2 stubs; someone else had the idea of putting a center drill directly into one to save time tightening a chuck. Thank you for the clear, easy-to-absorb lesson 🙂
For home shop use mild steel is fine. We tend to care for our stuff unlike students in a shool shop or workers in a plant environment. Some MT3 arbors I did in mild steel worked fine for many years on my old mill drill. So go for it!
Meanwhile...over at the mill... I do something similar, with a spotting drill, countersink, etc... in larger home-made sleeves that fit commonly used collets (3/8", 1/2") to save using the Jacobs chuck. Tool changes go faster without all that table lowering and raising, and moving away from the vise/job for clearance.
I used one I made for myself from unhardened 4140 at work for years , it was a MT5 for a #5 center drill if I remember correctly and it was in the same condition as the day I made after years of use.
@6:00 you didn't want to risk trusting accuracy of the center that was in the end of the factory part?
The shank is probably ground between those centers, you can check if it is by putting a center on it and indicating the runout
when I was an apprentice many many years ago in the radio/TV field, I was told:
if you want to make an oscillator, try to make an amplifier...
so it seems:
if you want to turn a taper, try to turn a parallel shaft...
Old electronics adage..if it does not oscil now it will oscillator.
@@johnstonewall917 LOL :)
Ahh! electronics jokes from a guy named Zener, I almost diode laughing!
@@kennethelwell8574 Zener diode jokes make me want to break down.
It’s a good thing your doing this on a video otherwise you could explain until your BLUE in the face to some of these true BLUE HOBBYISTS which in turn would turn you BLUE with frustration! And on that BLUE note I thank you ! 😜 this is truly a BLUE ribbon video in my book ! ( which is , you guessed BLUE ) I’m sorry you bring out the …….. ?!$@&” in me !
next video " how to avoid cutting tapers on any lathe "
In fact, I already did that video- it’s called How To Align Your Lathe. 😉
"Indicators are pretty limited in how long they can get"
Maybe but I have a 125mm travel Starrett which is usually enough. The thing is 500mm long which can be a bit of a pain.