# Taper tool for lathe from boring head



## GaryK

Turning tapers can be a pain without a taper attachment. Moving the tailstock means that you have to put it back.

Using a boring head from the mill is another simple way of doing it. I will show that in detail later.
You do need a couple of special things. 

1. A Morse Taper shaft for your boring head to fit you tail stock.
2. A live center without a Morse Taper but a shaft diameter to fit your boring head.

I will come back to number 2 later in this post.

Number 1 is easier, but a little pricey. For example my boring head is small with a thread of 7/8-20 and enco has them for $30.
But on ebay I found one for $10 with shipping, but it has 1/2-20 threads. Being cheap like I am I decided to adapter it.

These are the steps I took.

I started with this:



I cut the tang off of it (not necessary) and Turned, Tapped and Faced off the correct size of material



The I mount it in the headstock using the morse taper itself so I know it will be nice and true.
To make sure it doesn't un-thread I drilled a hole from the end in half of each part and drove in a roll pin.
Here I'm cutting the roll pin flush.



Then I form a blank for the threads.



Then thread it.



And it fits!



Here is is completed




And installed



As soon as I get the live center I ordered I'll show what I do to that.

Gary









View attachment 97954


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## Randy_m

Great idea, puttin that one on the to do list.


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## darkzero

Great thread gary, I'll definitely be following this one.

I've been planning to buy two boring heads, one to make one of these & the other to make another radius turning tool that attaches to my QCTP instead of directly to my cross slide like the one I currently have.

Interested in how to make the live center part. I was thinking to modify a MT1 live center but wasn't sure if it would be too big.

Looks like a 2" head or are you using a 3"?


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## GK1918

Great Gary, I guess Im lucky, I already have or came with my Criterion with a MT2 & MT3 and a R8
adaptor.  Also there is nothing wrong with a plain ole dead center or a ball bearing works well.
Excellent idea, tailstock alignment is dreadfull chore.  With this I can already see raking a taper with
dial ind. and tweeking the boring head until it -0s- out.


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## GaryK

darkzero said:


> Great thread gary, I'll definitely be following this one.
> 
> I've been planning to buy two boring heads, one to make one of these & the other to make another radius turning tool that attaches to my QCTP instead of directly to my cross slide like the one I currently have.
> 
> Interested in how to make the live center part. I was thinking to modify a MT1 live center but wasn't sure if it would be too big.
> 
> Looks like a 2" head or are you using a 3"?



It a 2" Head with 1/2" holes. I ordered an MT2 live center since a MT1 is smaller than 1/2". I should be getting it soon.


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## RandyM

Shear Genius Gary! Brilliant, just brilliant. Thanks for the post.


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## GaryK

RandyM said:


> Shear Genius Gary! Brilliant, just brilliant. Thanks for the post.



I can't take credit for this tapering setup. It's not my idea.

Gary


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## GaryK

Got my new live center today so I wasted no time in turning it down to fit my boring head.

This is it out of the package.




Chucked up with one pass taken.




The finished product.




Mounted in boring head




and installed ready to start turning tapers.





Next time I'll turn a MT2 for my rotary table adapted to center up a 4J chuck.

Gary


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## darkzero

Nice, now to wait & hear how good it works. ) Good to see your new 6-jaw in action. I did not realize the MT1 was smaller than 1/2", I never had any MT1 tooling, & I never bothered to check. Good thing you mentioned it.

BTW, I see they generously used that same white grease on your chuck that came on my Fuerda. There was so much excess of that white grease on my 4-jaw that I think I could have filled up a small container to use for later & last me a while. What a mess cleaning all that stuff off but in my case the jaws were so much smoother after I took most of it out. 

Some people swear by grease & some people say just oil. The grease Bison uses/sells is expensive (Fuchs Lubritech Gleitmo 805)! I took the advice of others & use oil. Even though you got a lot of initial fling but I don't like how chips get stuck in the grease so easy, the thought of all that in the scroll doesn't seem too good. What I don't understand is that my 6-jaw has a small zerk fitting on the face & Bison uses grease. Naturally I would think to use oil there but I suppose you could shoot grease through there too. I never use that zerk fitting to lube though.


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## GaryK

darkzero said:


> BTW, I see they generously used that same white grease on your chuck that came on my Fuerda. There was so much excess of that white grease on my 4-jaw that I think I could have filled up a small container to use for later & last me a while. What a mess cleaning all that stuff off but in my case the jaws were so much smoother after I took most of it out.
> 
> Some people swear by grease & some people say just oil. The grease Bison uses/sells is expensive (Fuchs Lubritech Gleitmo 805)! I took the advice of others & use oil. Even though you got a lot of initial fling but I don't like how chips get stuck in the grease so easy, the thought of all that in the scroll doesn't seem too good. What I don't understand is that my 6-jaw has a small zerk fitting on the face & Bison uses grease. Naturally I would think to use oil there but I suppose you could shoot grease through there too. I never use that zerk fitting to lube though.



Yup, I have to clean out the grease. I was too anxious to get something done to actually do it. No hurry though, so I'll wait until my next cleanup phase. Oil is what I've always used.

Gary


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## Exile

Really nice job there.  I love this method as re-aligning my tailstock everytime chews me right off! :banghead:


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## Tamper84

Neat idea!!!

Chris


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## lineman

) Great idea! Looks like it will work well. I've got it on the to-do list.


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## GaryK

Here's my first test of the boring head taper adapter.

The first thing I'm going to make is a thing to center a 4J chuck on my rotary table. The table has a MT2 in the center and the
chuck had an thru hole with an inside diameter of 1.187" 
So I know that my morse taper is a #2.

According to the handbook the taper is .59941" per foot.
Divide that by 12 gets .04995" per inch.
Now that per inch number is for the diameter not radius.
Radius would be half of that or .02497.

So having a DRO I picked a random spot that will give me at least 2" of travel. 2" since I am measuring the radius. That will give
me radius x 2.

I used a indicator on the shaft to be turned set to 0. Then I set the DRO to 0. Then moved 2". The indicator still reading 0.
Then adjust your boring head until your indicator reads .04995" (in reality .050"). That should give you a taper for a MT2.

I learned that you should set the boring head about .005 undersize. (.045). This will make the small end slightly over sized.
The reason for this it when test the fit of your taper you just fine adjust the boring head a little at a time. That way you don't
have to worry about taking up the slack since you are always moving in the same direction.

Here's my first attempt. The large end of a MT2 is about .700" so I cut a little beyond that.




My first attempt left the wear spot at the large end, so I had to decrease the setting on the boring head.
(I used a MT3 to MT2 adapter to test for fit)
This is where that starting under sized comes into play. I had to get the indicator back out since I had to move back in
and the out taking up the slack.




After the adjustment I take another pass.




After yet another adjustment I got an even wear pattern. I was done.




Then I removed the face plate and installed the MT adpater with my new taper in it.




Since the material I started with was only 1" I needed to add a flange to increase the diameter to fit
the chuck through hole, so I turned it down for threading.




Then threaded the end.




And then screwed on my piece. Then turned it down to fit the chuck




Here it is complete.




Installed in the rotary table.




And then a nicely centered chuck on the rotary table.




The boring head taper adapter worked perfectly and was a lot easier to make and use than I had hoped.
So I encourage everyone to give it a try!

Gary


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## darkzero

This should definitely be an article. Hope you don't mind but I published it. :thumbzup:


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## GaryK

darkzero said:


> This should definitely be an article. Hope you don't mind but I published it. :thumbzup:



I have never used that Article feature before, thanks. I will have to remember that. It's pretty cool the way it leaves nothing but the posts in it.

Next time I do a project I will have to keep that in mind.

Gary


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## oldntired

Excellent tutorial, thanks! I have a boring head and the adapter for my tailstock. Now to get a spare live center I can turn down.


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## hvoss

Phantastic idea! Partricularly as my tailstock doesn't even allow me to move for taper turning. Once just have to have the right idea, impressive !
(Guess these simply "thank you" posts kind of make the thread difficult to read, but .. I just HAD to  

Thanks!  

Helge


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## Jack

Excellent idea! Im going to put that with a set of boring head plans that I got here. It'll be for tapers only. Thanks for the Idea. Kudos.


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## JohnAspinall

Great presentation,  thank you.

One question: Do you do anything special to make sure the boring head stays horizontal in the tailstock?


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## GaryK

JohnAspinall said:


> Great presentation,  thank you.
> 
> One question: Do you do anything special to make sure the boring head stays horizontal in the tailstock?



No. With the live center there is no force transmitted to the tailstock.


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## darkzero

JohnAspinall said:


> Do you do anything special to make sure the boring head stays horizontal in the tailstock?



Gary would know best but as long as the taper is seated half way decent it shouldn't move at all.


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## PurpLev

pretty nifty setup Gary.


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## weeble

I like this a lot...very clever!  Thanks for sharing.


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## 416Taylor

Gary,
   Thanks a bunch for sharing this idea. I can't wait to make one. I do a lot of rifle barrel work and am always having to reset my tail stock.. This will really make for efficiency. Thanks again.


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## DaveBP

Gary,

Great article!  I learned some useful machining methods by watching your videos, in addition to the main topics you presented.  Nice lathe too.  I was surprised that you didn't use any cutting fluids?  Beautiful finish though.

Very well done.

Thanks,

Dave


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