Tapper arrangement or boring head setup...

Newton

Newton

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I had a small eureka moment in the shop tonight working with my CNC.

Until now I have done tapering on my CNC but I tested this also on my
lathe and it worked very well.

Now, I'm tempted to get my hands on a boring head for my tailstock but
then I thought "There must be a reason why many do a rebuild and make a
tapper arrangement" ...

I guess that using a boring head in the tailstock would cause some problems
due to the fact that the center would not be equally "loaded".
But I think this is something I might be able to design a solution for.

However, is there any other reasons why people build tapper arrangement ?

I would only tapper butts and not shafts on the lathe.

Kent J
 
Newton said:
I had a small eureka moment in the shop tonight working with my CNC.

Until now I have done tapering on my CNC but I tested this also on my
lathe and it worked very well.

Now, I'm tempted to get my hands on a boring head for my tailstock but
then I thought "There must be a reason why many do a rebuild and make a
tapper arrangement" ...

I guess that using a boring head in the tailstock would cause some problems
due to the fact that the center would not be equally "loaded".
But I think this is something I might be able to design a solution for.

However, is there any other reasons why people build tapper arrangement ?

I would only tapper butts and not shafts on the lathe.

Kent J[/QUOTE

I use both boring heads and tail stock off-sets on different lathes. The only thing I use a taper bar is on my dedicated shaft machines. When using a steel joint I use the compound to taper it as it is rigid.

When using a taper attachment, the dowel is running true between centers and the tool is progressively moving away or towards the material.

When a boring head or the tail stock offset is used, which both use the same principle just a little different way of getting the end result, the problem is that since the center at one end of the dowel is not in line with the center at the other end. A chuck is made to hold things by clamping on to the sides of the material. Since the dowel is canted, it is always trying to walk either forward or back and the dowel is slightly bent as the chuck is trying to force it to run straight and the tail stock off-set is trying to make it at a different angle. One way around this is to run between centers using a lathe dog but you still have a problem as since wood is so much softer than metal, your center will become distorted.

Dick
Click to expand...
 
Kent, the solution you are looking for is a ball centre.
They are like tapered centres, but use a ball. You still just use a regular centre drill,but there is a ball contact point in the cetre.
Wood and soft materials are easy, as the pressure and the ball makes it's own true alignment.
In harder materials you want to use a ball end cutter to make a nice radius to suite the ball end on the centres.
The ball centres are easy to make, just hold a ball bearing ball in the lathe chuck and use a carbide drill.
I made mine from 5/16 ball and used 3/16 carbide drill. They are loctited onto the mandrel.
When I find them I will take a picture. Everything is still being unpacked.
Neil
 
conetip said:
Kent, the solution you are looking for is a ball centre.

.....

I made mine from 5/16 ball and used 3/16 carbide drill. They are loctited onto the mandrel.
Click to expand...

Thanks Neil, I just learned something. Are "ball centers" available commercially (I know, google could be my friend here) ? If not this may be a good application for my newly made ball/radius turning attachment. I use a 1/2"x20tpi x MT2 drill chuck arbour for these types of "special" tooling-jig-a-ma-jigs, but mostly they are for my rotary table ... of course a "ball-center" adaptor would be great in that as well. Thanks again fo rthis great idea.

Dave
 
I am not sure. We have always made our own as an apprentice training exercise for the apprentice.
Now with cnc everything alot of these tools will be falling by the wayside so to speak.
But you could easliy make them on a cnc lathe from toolsteel stock, or as you said with a radius attachment and put a ball on a MT2 attachment.
I have seen alot of changes in toolmaking over 27 years. From all manual to cnc multi axis machines that make parts that were not posible to make 10 years ago.
Neil
 
Thanks for the replies.

Dick: My idea was not to use the chuck in the drive side but make something pretty much like a dead center but without the tappered MT. Like a arrow with
a 60' angle on the front. But as you mentioned, even this would mess up the
center of the wood I guess.

Neil: The ball idea sounds great and I would for sure think through it. Did you
make a ball-bearing arrangement for the tail stock as well, so the ball could
be fixed to the wood and rotate freely? This is a idea I'm considering in addition
to the offset. I was also considering machining my own "boring head" with a
MT3 attachment but with a angle adjustment which could compensate for the
of center support of the wood.

Drop me some words if you find that pic, you have my email adr. ;-)

Kent J
 
conetip said:
I am not sure. We have always made our own as an apprentice training exercise for the apprentice.
Click to expand...

That's me, a 50 year old apprentice gaining experience one screw-up at a time :thumbup2:

I can see some ball-turning in my near future.

Dave
 
DaveK said:
That's me, a 50 year old apprentice gaining experience one screw-up at a time :thumbup2:

I can see some ball-turning in my near future.

Dave
Click to expand...

Dave,
I guess we could save us some of the work and buy one of these (or similar) and thread
it on a mandrel :scratchhead:

Kent
 

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Taper Bar

Hi,

I have a ajustable 32" taper bar mounted on a large alum. angle iron flange attached to the back of my 13 X 36 metal lathe. I have it permanently set to my butt taper. I have that baby locked down and although it is adjustable, I would never change the angle because it has my exact geometry for tapering and cutting wrap grooves on my cues.

I have a 1/4" router that mounts to my tool post at the center line elevation between centers at a perpendicular vector. To cut butt tapers or wrap groves I remove 2 screws from the top of the saddle to disconnect the cross slide lead screw, loosen the gib adjustment and install my bearing post that follows the my taper bar. My springs that hold the cross slide tension to the taper bar are always hooked up and are only in tension when I do tapering. This process takes about 60 seconds to set up.

When I taper cues between centers with the travel and lathe rpm adjusted just right, my cues are ready for sealing without the need to sand them. There are no spiral lines or tool marks at all. The rms finish is very smooth and my centers are not damaged.

I install a magnetic mount air valve that blows air across the angled bow tie router bit where it interfaces the curf. I never have dirty or cross contaminated veneers or dirty white joints, butt caps or rings. Cues that are at the final dimension go directly to my wood lathe to have the epoxy sealer installed. Not having to sand has made my finished product 1000% better because everything is perfectly clean under the finish.

My good friend Darrin Hill ( cue maker / machinist ) designed & milled the tool post holder for my Rigid router and machined 4 turned posts for mounting the taper bar to the back on the lathe. We installed the parts on my lathe in about 1 hour at my shop.

I tried the offset method before and did not like the fact that the dead center and live center were rumming on the 60 degree centers on my wood components. The ball center may solve this problem. I like my set so much that I would never consider experimenting with anything else.

Rick Geschrey
 
Last edited:
scdiveteam said:
Hi,

I have a ajustable 32" taper bar mounted on a large alum. angle iron flange attached to the back of my 13 X 36 metal lathe. I have it permanently set to my butt taper. I have that baby locked down and although it is adjustable, I would never change the angle because it has my exact geometry for tapering and cutting wrap groove on my cues.

I have a 1/4" router that mounts to my tool post at the center line elevation between centers at a perpendicular vector. To cut butt tapers or wrap groves I remove 2 screws from the top of the saddle to disconnect the cross slide lead screw, loosen the gib adjustment and install my bearing post that follows the my taper bar. My springs that hold the cross slide tension to the taper bar are always hooked up and are only in tension when I do tapering. This process takes about 60 seconds to set up.

When I taper cues between centers with the travel and lathe rpm adjusted just right, my cues are ready for sealing without the need to sand them. There are no spiral lines or tool marks at all. The rms finish is very smooth and my centers are not damaged.

I install a magnetic mount air valve that blows air across the angled bow tie router bit where it interfaces the curf. I never have dirty or cross contaminated veneers or dirty white joints, butt caps or rings. Cues that are at the final dimension go directly to my wood lathe to have the epoxy sealer installed. Not having to sand has made my finished product 1000% better because everything is perfectly clean under the finish.

My good friend Darrin Hill ( cue maker / machinist ) designed & milled the tool post holder for my Rigid router and machined 4 turned posts for mounting the taper bar to the back on the lathe. We installed the parts on my lathe in about 1 hour at my shop.

I tried the offset method before and did not like the fact that the dead center and live center were rumming on the 60 degree centers on my wood components. The ball center may solve this problem. I like my set so much that I would never consider experimenting with anything else.

Rick Geschrey
Click to expand...

Well that's all fine and dandy but your post is worthless unless you accompany it with a minimum of 10 detailed pictures.


<~~~pulling your chain but pictures are worth a brazillion words..........
 
scdiveteam said:
Hi,

I have a ajustable 32" taper bar mounted on a large alum. angle iron flange attached to the back of my 13 X 36 metal lathe. I have it permanently set to my butt taper. I have that baby locked down and although it is adjustable, I would never change the angle because it has my exact geometry for tapering and cutting wrap groove on my cues.

I have a 1/4" router that mounts to my tool post at the center line elevation between centers at a perpendicular vector. To cut butt tapers or wrap groves I remove 2 screws from the top of the saddle to disconnect the cross slide lead screw, loosen the gib adjustment and install my bearing post that follows the my taper bar. My springs that hold the cross slide tension to the taper bar are always hooked up and are only in tension when I do tapering. This process takes about 60 seconds to set up.

When I taper cues between centers with the travel and lathe rpm adjusted just right, my cues are ready for sealing without the need to sand them. There are no spiral lines or tool marks at all. The rms finish is very smooth and my centers are not damaged.

I install a magnetic mount air valve that blows air across the angled bow tie router bit where it interfaces the curf. I never have dirty or cross contaminated veneers or dirty white joints, butt caps or rings. Cues that are at the final dimension go directly to my wood lathe to have the epoxy sealer installed. Not having to sand has made my finished product 1000% better because everything is perfectly clean under the finish.

My good friend Darrin Hill ( cue maker / machinist ) designed & milled the tool post holder for my Rigid router and machined 4 turned posts for mounting the taper bar to the back on the lathe. We installed the parts on my lathe in about 1 hour at my shop.

I tried the offset method before and did not like the fact that the dead center and live center were rumming on the 60 degree centers on my wood components. The ball center may solve this problem. I like my set so much that I would never consider experimenting with anything else.

Rick Geschrey
Click to expand...

Thanks Rick for sharing.

I have seen a lot of tapper arrangements and I'm aware on how to make them.
However I guess I was looking for the easy escape for my setup :)

I experienced that some of the hard wood caused moire effects when I used
my CNC, but mounting the wood in my lathe -without live tooling
cut the wood like butter and caused a perfect surface as well. No need to
sand at all.
I would shoot a pic to show the difference tonight - Barrenbr..

K
 
Taper Bar Pics

Dave,

I will try to post some pics by sunday. Never done it before but there is a first time for everything :eek::eek:

Rick
 
scdiveteam said:
Dave,

I will try to post some pics by sunday. Never done it before but there is a first time for everything :eek::eek:

Rick
Click to expand...

Easy stuff...........if you can build cues you can surely post pictures!
A lot of people like the photobucket thing but myself I prefer this picture hosting site for ease of use and simplicity.
http://photo-hosting.winsoftmagic.com/

Don't bother with the Advanced JPEG compressor you can do all of that with Photowise or similar.
 
I'm going to catch flack because I'm not a cue maker, but I do my taper exactly the way you are suggesting.

I have a very small live center mounted in a boring head mounted in the tail stock. I use an indicator to set my taper- check the joint and the butt area/check first pass- I have to break it down every time I use it so I cannot leave it set up...

I use the collet closer in the head stock with a home-made brass dead center. I put a collar on it so it bears against the face of the collet. No drive dog (and I'm single pointing) with no issues- it never stalled on me, but I take very light cuts.

See some pictures here: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=153191

About 1/2 way down but it doesn't show the boring head (unless it is shown later- I don't remember)
 
Cue Guru said:
I'm going to catch flack because I'm not a cue maker, but I do my taper exactly the way you are suggesting.

I have a very small live center mounted in a boring head mounted in the tail stock. I use an indicator to set my taper- check the joint and the butt area/check first pass- I have to break it down every time I use it so I cannot leave it set up...

I use the collet closer in the head stock with a home-made brass dead center. I put a collar on it so it bears against the face of the collet. No drive dog (and I'm single pointing) with no issues- it never stalled on me, but I take very light cuts.

See some pictures here: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=153191

About 1/2 way down but it doesn't show the boring head (unless it is shown later- I don't remember)
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing. Always interesting to see how others do their work.
I understand you have no problem then in relation to the fact that the 60´
live centers cause any "grinding" in the ends then ?
Do you pre bore with a 60´drill or do you use a larger angle on the bore ?

Have attached two pics of the results after turning the dowels first in the CNC and then (at the end) on the lathe.

First pic shows Moire "rastered" texture which was made with the CNC spindle
milling on the side. Did run with possible to much speed and a $hitty
end mill :(

Next picture shows dowel with 90´top milling in the CNC and then at the end
lathe.

Think I would go for a boring bar and a small live center to at least get started :)

Kent
 

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Newton said:
I understand you have no problem then in relation to the fact that the 60´
live centers cause any "grinding" in the ends then ?
Click to expand...

I did not have any problems, but there is the possibility of it. Both centers are drilled into maple; other woods may react differently. The actual angle you are offset is not very great so I would not foresee any problems unless you had excessive pressure on the tail stock (which would ruin any center even if straight)

Newton said:
Do you pre bore with a 60´drill or do you use a larger angle on the bore ?
Click to expand...

Yes, I prepare the ends with a standard center drill, which is 60 degrees included angle.

Newton said:
Think I would go for a boring bar and a small live center to at least get started :)
Click to expand...

It is an inexpensive set-up to create, and if your blanks are always the same length, you can leave the taper set on the boring head assuming the center in your chuck/collet is in exactly the same place (That's why I included the small stop collar on mine):wink:, and just verify dimensions after your first cut to be sure it is perfect.
 
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