Home made (DIY) Poor Man's shaft taper machine

[Scott Behrens]

Thought it'd be fun to see if I could cheaply build myself a shaft tapering machine. its not perfect and needs some improvements, including a taper bar with a spring slide to follow the taper but it works. Thought I'd share that this can be built fairly cheaply.

I had the trim router. Pulled the slow speed geared motor and mdf from a treadmill. Purchased SR16 linear rails from Amazon. Got the T8 lead screw and nut from Amazon. Bought an atlas half nut assembly from eBay and modified it to hold the T8 lead nut and cut it in half. Pulleys, Belts, Toggle switches came from AliExpress. 8MM high speed steel also, which I ground to a point on a bench grinder. Also got 8mm collar stops and pillow blocks from there which complete the drive and spring point on the center. slide mechanism also came from AliExpress. Used a hanger bracket from Menards for the router mount. I will upgrade but its been a fun project. Thanks.

 

[DeeDeeCues]

Nice job, if you only consider this to be a proof-of-concept machine. You are correct in that you don't have to spend a ton of money to build something like this, but some of what you have done is very scary.

Mostly the router set-up. Are you really okay with using this with the router mounted as it is? There is going to be a ton of flex in that 'bracket'. That flex will lead to the bracket failing. The flex will also cause the mounting screw on the router to loosen. If anything ever goes wrong, you may have a live router detach from the machine.

As a tip, instead of using a steel spring to load the taper axis, use a gas spring. Gas springs are cheap and inherently damping, which will help if anything ever goes wrong.

 

[Scott Behrens]

Thanks for the thoughts. I've made some improvements without spending too much.
The treadmill motor proved to overheat so i switched to a makermotor with power supply and used a HF ammo tin to get the electronics enclosed. I purchased a 3d printer for the kids that proved very helpful as well. I'll probably continue to tweak but I'm pretty happy with this right now.