taper attachment

[rampa room artillery]

  So who here has made a  taper attachment for their lathe??  I am looking into building one or getting one made.  full bed length taper attachment.


?



rick bryan
 n_ssa

[Double D]

I have used a commercial taper attachment back in school.  I have also used a tracer with a template a couple of time to taper gun barrels. 

[rampa room artillery]

I just found this one. For the price of materials I will give it a try   http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/south-bend-lathes/homemade-taper-attachment-done-129600/    we will see how it holds up i guess?   I already have plenty of 1in round stock that i am going to use.

rick bryan

[Double D]

If you are going to make cannons you might be better off with a tracer attachment.

[rampa room artillery]

I would but most guns i will be building will be simple , like mountain howitzer and pack parrot and mortars.  not to many detailed cannons like some that i have seen.   do you have any pics of one of your traces??

rick bryan
N-SSA

[Double D]

All the more reason for a tracer.  Fast set up, highly repeatable

[GGaskill]

Do you have to disconnect your cross slide from its feed screw or not?  What kind of lathe do you have?

[Victor3]

 Don't all lathe taper attachments require that the cross-slide screw (or nut, or part of the cross-slide casting) be somehow disengaged from the cross-slide in order to operate? Otherwise, how could they work?

 One variation is a 2nd cross-slide dovetail under the 'normal' one. During use of the taper attachment, the normal one is clamped tight and the lower one, separate from the screw, is freed to move. Another one I saw used a split nut for the cross-slide that could be removed. Yet another used a separate, solid compound slide that replaced the standard one with the screw in it, and had the taper ways clamped to the front of the bed rather than in the rear.

 If one isn't planning on doing either production or complex radii & taper turning,  a hydraulic tracer attachment is somewhat expensive to buy, and a hassle to set up and make templates for just a one-off.

 Although it takes more time, simply using the compound to form a long taper in steps is an option that requires no special attachment.

[armorer77]

My lathe came with a taper attachment . The slide is mounted on heavy springs , allowing it to follow the taper .

[Double D]

Yes on the lathe I was using you had to loosen the cross slide split nut.  The template that was bolted onto a bracket on the back of the bed, was a long slotted piece of metal.  An arm bolted to the cross slide had  a roller finger that traveled down the slot as the carriage traveled down the bed. I don't recall how it kept tension....

At least this is how I remember it 20 some odd years ago.

[rampa room artillery]

I will know more this weekend, I am picking up a supermax LE 1338   will have photos soon.

[dominick]

  Although it takes more time, simply using the compound to form a long taper in steps is an option that requires no special attachment.

That's how I cut tapers.  It works very well.

[GGaskill]

Although it takes more time, simply using the compound to form a long taper in steps is an option that requires no special attachment.

But it is sometimes difficult to align the compound to a specific long taper since you are usually talking about strange fractions of degrees.  It's easier to set the taper attachment to 1.5" in 24" (or 3/4" in 12") than to set the compound to 3.57633°.

In my cannon classes (and in my home shop), where we do tapers with the tail stock offset method, sometimes we can't get enough offset from the tail stock and have to do tapers with the stair step and lathe file method, which is even more laborious.  See page 6 of my discourse on making a 24 pounder barrel for further details.

[dan610324]

if it aint extremely long , why not just set the top slide for the angle you need ??

ok you will not get it exakt 3,57633 degrees
but if you get it somewhere in between 3,5 and 3,6 I guess its good enough for the hobby cannon builder .

[dominick]

Although it takes more time, simply using the compound to form a long taper in steps is an option that requires no special attachment.

But it is sometimes difficult to align the compound to a specific long taper since you are usually talking about strange fractions of degrees.  It's easier to set the taper attachment to 1.5" in 24" (or 3/4" in 12") than to set the compound to 3.57633°.

I use a straight edge that's the same length of the taper I want to cut and rest it along side the compound. Touch one end against the work piece and then adjust the compound by measuring the gap at the other end of the straight edge.

[Victor3]

But it is sometimes difficult to align the compound to a specific long taper since you are usually talking about strange fractions of degrees.  It's easier to set the taper attachment to 1.5" in 24" (or 3/4" in 12") than to set the compound to 3.57633°.

 Anyone doing such things should have a sine bar.