Morse Tapers

[dgoddard]

What is the best way to set up to cut a Morse Taper (internal or external) on a lathe with no taper attachment. Angling the compound or offsetting the tailstock are the only two tapering features that I am aware that the lathe has.

[machine48]

When I cut a morse taper I have always angle the compound.

[GlennW]

The available compound travel vs the length of required cut would be the determining factor in the method used.

Glenn

[dgoddard]

I don't often quote myself but:

What is the best way to set up to cut a Morse Taper (internal or external)...

The real question is doing the setup to get the angle right, and I am wondering how that is done. I have succeeded with the compound before but I am not sure that I have found the esaiest way and I am wondering how others have gone about it.

[Mcgyver]

whether using the compound or taper attachment, I usually set up a commercial taper in the lathe between centres (sometimes you need to put a centre in the taper and rest it in a centre drilled hole in the headstock) and use an indicator against it. Its far from perfect and the indicator has to be at centre height for this to work. Its not dawned on me an exact way to ensure sure this.... a little vertical slide with feed screw would accomplish this but i haven't got around to building something like that

after turning, test using blue in a decent quality commercial master.

and when you get it dead on, turn a bunch of them

also interested in what better ideas come forth.....

[someonesdad]

Either way works, given you have enough compound travel to cut full length, as already mentioned. Chuck up a Morse taper object in the spindle and either

a) Indicate the compound to run parallel to it

or

b) Set the tailstock over such that an indicator's reading stays constant while traversing the longitudinal feed.

[Frank Ford]

I made myself a little fixture that I can use to set the compound angle with a regular sine bar and gage blocks. Mine indexes against the flat straight side of the compound, but on lathes without such a feature, it could just as easily index into the compound t-slot. It's surprisingly accurate measuring against the tailstock ram.



Here's the whole project:

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Machini ... xture.html

[someonesdad]

By the way, if any of you folks haven't visited Frank's site, be sure to do so -- he's got lots of tips and nifty ideas. http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Machining/index.html.

Guy Lautard's books have a good idea in them: a tailstock center that is movable for offset and pinned to the various tapers. If I did a lot of taper turning of a few types, I'd probably make one even though my lathe has a taper attachment.

Another idea is to stick a boring bar in the tailstock such that the direction of travel is horizontal, then use the micrometer screw to set the tailstock set-over.

One day if I ever get the energy for it I'm going to take my taper attachment apart and mount two tooling balls on it such that I can use a simply-modified inside micrometer to measure from the ground ways to the balls and calculate the angle from the inverse sine. The attachment is 15" long, so it would be a good base for accurate settings. But I don't turn enough tapers to get excited over it.

[MikeC]

I have copied a taper by setting up on an existing taper. That works very well, but only using the compound with a taper attach, or if the two parts are EXACTLY the same length between centers if offsetting the tailstock. That's the problem with the offsetting method... the taper will change with length between centers.

The only way I know to set this up would be with a dial indicator.. a very good and accurate one with a good rigid base. Scribe two very accurate lines on the work, set up between centers and check your tables to get the proper offset for the tailstock, given the length you have.