Make a lathe height gauge with not (much) thinking and figuring.

[Winegrower]

I have been setting up my new to me Takisawa 14" lathe. Wow, is it fun to make chips with this. It cuts steel like my old Logan cut aluminum.

But now all my tooling, accessories, DRO, etc. needs to be redone. Buying a bunch of CXA tool holders, I quickly figured out that setting the tool heights for all those new holders was not so much fun.

So I turned down a short rod to some arbitrary diameter that would fit in a 5C collet block, the square kind, and took it to the mill and milled down exactly half the diameter from one end, rotated it 90 and ran it through again, so there is a 90 degree pie shaped extension on one end.

Now, stick that in the three jaw, and the corner or apex of the pie is exactly on center, and the highest thing around. It's easy to get a very precise tool setting now.

Here's a picture.

 

[Canus]

Appears to be a great idea. For my use I would mount the rod with the point down. To each his own.

 

[mmcmdl]

Appears to be a great idea. For my use I would mount the rod with the point down. To each his own.

And adjust up .

 

[Tozguy]

Now, stick that in the three jaw, and the corner or apex of the pie is exactly on center, and the highest thing around. It's easy to get a very precise tool setting now.

The level of repeatability of the 3 jaw would be a factor.

 

[Winegrower]

Interesting points. Adjusting from the bottom would work, maybe preferable with some tools. I didn’t consider that. Conversely, I set a tool upside down the other day and this would have been helpful.

Regarding 3 jaw repeatability, it seems to me that from the geometry, there is little effect for small vertical excursion errors about the center line. Kind of a sine/cosine sort of thing. Or “top dead center”.

 

[kvt]

Problem is I do not have enough tool holders to fit all my tools, Thus some times I have to change tools in the middle of a piece. I would not want to be having to pull that piece out to adjust the next tool. I have been looking making one like I have seen, Bottom piece would set on either the way or the cross slide, It would be adjustable, Just in case I drop and bang it up and have to refinish the bottom or the top,
The top would be made where you could move a disk and set your took wither from the disk on top of it, or even with the top of the bar.
For adjustment in the middle thread it and Loctite a threaded rod in, Then in the top thread it, and put in a set screw with a brass plug so you do not mar the threads. Then if at any time you need to you could re adjust your tools or put in new ones, without having to remove your work.
Also makes good when you need to check after replacing a bad insert, in the middle of a job.

 

[Winegrower]

KVT, I agree...I also made a block to reference to the top of the “tool slide”, as the manual calls it.

 

[Bamban]

I just take the easy way out, stick a dead center in the TS and align the cutter tip to the point. Then stick a small diameter aluminum in the chuck and face it and fine tune for a no center knob finish.

 

[Tozguy]

This is my tool height gauge. The bolt head is faced underneath and the nut is faced to sit flat on the cross slide. The tool is adjusted up under the bolt head until it tilts the bolt.

 

[jdedmon91]

Problem is I do not have enough tool holders to fit all my tools, Thus some times I have to change tools in the middle of a piece. I would not want to be having to pull that piece out to adjust the next tool. I have been looking making one like I have seen, Bottom piece would set on either the way or the cross slide, It would be adjustable, Just in case I drop and bang it up and have to refinish the bottom or the top,
The top would be made where you could move a disk and set your took wither from the disk on top of it, or even with the top of the bar.
For adjustment in the middle thread it and Loctite a threaded rod in, Then in the top thread it, and put in a set screw with a brass plug so you do not mar the threads. Then if at any time you need to you could re adjust your tools or put in new ones, without having to remove your work.
Also makes good when you need to check after replacing a bad insert, in the middle of a job.

I had that problem until I was killing time in my shop one day and made a bunch up. Yes I could have bought them however making them was rewarding


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