I am wondering how do I go about getting one of these. Who makes them, are they worth it, and if anyone has one they don't want, would they be willing to sell it?
Table saw shaft tapering machine
- Thread starter SK Custom Cues
- Start date
i have seen some of these work ok and some not the cnc ones in my opion do a smoother job usally the taper bar ones have waves in the shaft, the end result is a perfect taper smooth as glass no waves what so ever!!!
you should take any cue you might have and look down the shaft from small to big end and see how many cues out there have waves in the shafts. starting out with a cut from the router or saw with no waves it makes it so much better and easy to taper a finish shaft coming off a saw machine set up right should take little sanding to finish it. so if your looking for a saw machine id go cnc rather then taper bar again just my opion
they do come up in this forum from time to time keep your eyes peeled
The only question about that to me right now is affordability. I have been doing some searches and have found that blud might be the man I'm looking for. Ron Haley is in my area and I heard he uses one and might make one, but I just wanted to get the questions out here on AZ to help me explore and make sure I didn't miss any other time saving or money saving options!
Thanks, LEE.
I've got 2 of them of my own design but I wouldn't consider selling one. I had built and sold some in the past and have been worried ever since that some one is going to be hurt and it be my responsibility. Mine have the blade built into them so no saw is needed. They work exemplary and the shafts come out perfectly. Tuning, to eliminate any vibration in the shafts or machine can be time consuming. I built my first one in 96. CNC is definitely the way to go however. I'm in the process of building a 4 shaft, CNC saw machine if I would just get busy on it. I've tapered shafts as small as 8.5mm on this machine but the shafts taper was a disaster. I used my normal taper bar so the shaft was like a long noodle. Experimenting with it, I once took a 1 inch square dowel and turned it to 11 mm in 1 pass.
Dick
dave sutton
Banned
dick thats a neat little machine. all i can say to you is most machines in our shops are dangerous. i wouldnt worry about a grown man getting hurt on one of your machines. most know the risk involved
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It looks scary.
You better know your coordinates/offsets on Mach3 REALLY WELL.
Soft limits and hard limits better be set.
Nice machine Dick.
If I had the room, I'd convert my cnc taperer to table saw too.
Tables Saw Tapering Machine
Hi,
In my opinion table saw shaft machines are the best way to go for absolute repeatability of your product. Here are some hard earned details that promote my claim.
I now have two saw machines. One is set up with my parabolic shaft taper and one is set up for my butt tapper. I installed plexiglass tunnel enclosures with two 4" dust collection ports downstream of the blade rotation direction. These babies produce zero dust in my shop. I rough cut the butts to a dimension of .020 oversize, then finish them in my big lathe with the same taper so I don't have to sand and reduce cross contamination to my veneer colors.
I bought a Leonard Bludworth CNC unit and after studying it with Darrin Hill he made some engineering modifications and we turned it into a non CNC machine with an auto shut off and we replaced the CNC stepper motors with DC motors and two controlers. After modifying my machine Darrin milled all of the parts and we built two more machines that have a lead screw with a half nut instead of the non interrupted lead screw and heavy drag plate as was Blud's design. Darrin also has two machines in his shop.
Lenord's machine worked great and he is a great engineer of this type of equipment. Because of the CNC needs to locate position, it takes a lot of time to go back and forth between cuts in one direction. With my taper bar and dial indicator vernier control of the cutting depth, I am taking 1 1/8" rods from my doweling machine and cutting tapers where it requires taking initial passes starting in the center of the piece and progressively moving back 3 more times to establish the taper. Darrin suggested that it was much easier to do this using the interrupted lead screw with the half nut device. After the initial taper is established, I just put in a shaft, dial in the cut and turn on the machine. It turns off by itself and that automated process is just has good as the CNC deal.
Before these machines, I had a dedicated atlas lathe set up for shaft tapers with a vertical then changed to a horizontal router set up. I also have a lathe that is set up with my butt taper and it produces flawless results whereby I do not have to sand before I finish the cue. The thinner shaft taper set up on a lathe is not so forgiving as there is more deflection in the midsection and the router leaves tiny ridge lines that have to be sanded out. The flat grind 80 tooth saw blade seems to solve the problem with a smooth cut even in the deflection area.
I live in Palatine and spent some time hanging around Ray Schuler's shop before he died and I noticed that all of his shafts came off his lathe set up had these ridge lines that also had to be sanded out. It takes a long time to sand these lines out using a sanding bock on the wood lathe between centers. Since I have a parabolic taper to my shafts, I am sure that I was distorting my geometry with the long sanding period.
On these machines, once the shaft comes off at the final dimension it requires about 1 minute of sanding with 320 before I can apply a waterborne wood sealer to stabilize the grain. After the grain raise I sand progressively to 1500 then finish with rapid pads and burnish. The whole process after it comes off the machine is about 5 minutes of labor and the shafts are perfect.
Now my parabolic taper is perfectly in tact and I save about 25 minutes of labor from the long sanding period of my lathe set up because I used to have to cut the shafts slightly oversize to compensate for the sanding of the tiny lines. This was a real pain in my ass and I never wanted to work on shafts because is was time consuming. Now I love to do shafts because they come out so good very fast.
It is very important that the correct spring pressure is obtained on the live center and you must have the saw blades ground with a the flat top contour. Establishing the correct feed and speed is also very important to get the perfect result.
These machines were very expensive and labor intensive to build. The variable speed DC motors and controllers alone were about $ 1000.00 per machine and had to be speced. to match the parameters perfectly. I spent over 4 days of research to find the ones to match this automated process for the linear motion and the lathe speed respectively. The motors that we are using are small, light weight, and can run all day and they don't even feel warm to the touch. They are matched perfectly to the job with the correct controllers.
If you want to buy one of these machines, Darrin is the guy to talk to because he is the expert shaft machine builder. I don't know if he has the time to build one at this time but it would be worth the wait if he is busy now. It is also very important to buy a premium heavy duty table saw. I can place a nickel on my saw tables and it will not fall down even if I am hogging the initial taper. Placing rubber pads under the feet, installing the saw blade vibration damper, and using the adjustable anti vibration drive belt also makes for a smoother cut. Again if you are buying a saw for this process you want something with mass. We bought 3 of Grizzley's heavy duty model.
I will post some pics of my machines in the next couple of days.
Rick Geschrey
Hi,
In my opinion table saw shaft machines are the best way to go for absolute repeatability of your product. Here are some hard earned details that promote my claim.
I now have two saw machines. One is set up with my parabolic shaft taper and one is set up for my butt tapper. I installed plexiglass tunnel enclosures with two 4" dust collection ports downstream of the blade rotation direction. These babies produce zero dust in my shop. I rough cut the butts to a dimension of .020 oversize, then finish them in my big lathe with the same taper so I don't have to sand and reduce cross contamination to my veneer colors.
I bought a Leonard Bludworth CNC unit and after studying it with Darrin Hill he made some engineering modifications and we turned it into a non CNC machine with an auto shut off and we replaced the CNC stepper motors with DC motors and two controlers. After modifying my machine Darrin milled all of the parts and we built two more machines that have a lead screw with a half nut instead of the non interrupted lead screw and heavy drag plate as was Blud's design. Darrin also has two machines in his shop.
Lenord's machine worked great and he is a great engineer of this type of equipment. Because of the CNC needs to locate position, it takes a lot of time to go back and forth between cuts in one direction. With my taper bar and dial indicator vernier control of the cutting depth, I am taking 1 1/8" rods from my doweling machine and cutting tapers where it requires taking initial passes starting in the center of the piece and progressively moving back 3 more times to establish the taper. Darrin suggested that it was much easier to do this using the interrupted lead screw with the half nut device. After the initial taper is established, I just put in a shaft, dial in the cut and turn on the machine. It turns off by itself and that automated process is just has good as the CNC deal.
Before these machines, I had a dedicated atlas lathe set up for shaft tapers with a vertical then changed to a horizontal router set up. I also have a lathe that is set up with my butt taper and it produces flawless results whereby I do not have to sand before I finish the cue. The thinner shaft taper set up on a lathe is not so forgiving as there is more deflection in the midsection and the router leaves tiny ridge lines that have to be sanded out. The flat grind 80 tooth saw blade seems to solve the problem with a smooth cut even in the deflection area.
I live in Palatine and spent some time hanging around Ray Schuler's shop before he died and I noticed that all of his shafts came off his lathe set up had these ridge lines that also had to be sanded out. It takes a long time to sand these lines out using a sanding bock on the wood lathe between centers. Since I have a parabolic taper to my shafts, I am sure that I was distorting my geometry with the long sanding period.
On these machines, once the shaft comes off at the final dimension it requires about 1 minute of sanding with 320 before I can apply a waterborne wood sealer to stabilize the grain. After the grain raise I sand progressively to 1500 then finish with rapid pads and burnish. The whole process after it comes off the machine is about 5 minutes of labor and the shafts are perfect.
Now my parabolic taper is perfectly in tact and I save about 25 minutes of labor from the long sanding period of my lathe set up because I used to have to cut the shafts slightly oversize to compensate for the sanding of the tiny lines. This was a real pain in my ass and I never wanted to work on shafts because is was time consuming. Now I love to do shafts because they come out so good very fast.
It is very important that the correct spring pressure is obtained on the live center and you must have the saw blades ground with a the flat top contour. Establishing the correct feed and speed is also very important to get the perfect result.
These machines were very expensive and labor intensive to build. The variable speed DC motors and controllers alone were about $ 1000.00 per machine and had to be speced. to match the parameters perfectly. I spent over 4 days of research to find the ones to match this automated process for the linear motion and the lathe speed respectively. The motors that we are using are small, light weight, and can run all day and they don't even feel warm to the touch. They are matched perfectly to the job with the correct controllers.
If you want to buy one of these machines, Darrin is the guy to talk to because he is the expert shaft machine builder. I don't know if he has the time to build one at this time but it would be worth the wait if he is busy now. It is also very important to buy a premium heavy duty table saw. I can place a nickel on my saw tables and it will not fall down even if I am hogging the initial taper. Placing rubber pads under the feet, installing the saw blade vibration damper, and using the adjustable anti vibration drive belt also makes for a smoother cut. Again if you are buying a saw for this process you want something with mass. We bought 3 of Grizzley's heavy duty model.
I will post some pics of my machines in the next couple of days.
Rick Geschrey
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Tables Saw Tapering Machine
duplicate post deleted.
duplicate post deleted.
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Thank you everyone for the tips.
I have this Delta
I love the way it runs. I have a Forrest Woodworker II and a Freud Fusion blade. I also have a 80T Freud thin kerf melamine blade. How do I get the teeth ground flat?
I am not in the market for one of these machines at this time unless I got a deal I couldn't refuse. I am looking around for the near future.
I have this Delta
I love the way it runs. I have a Forrest Woodworker II and a Freud Fusion blade. I also have a 80T Freud thin kerf melamine blade. How do I get the teeth ground flat?
I am not in the market for one of these machines at this time unless I got a deal I couldn't refuse. I am looking around for the near future.
You actually want a normal kerf blade. 60 tooth is what most use for 10" blade and I use a 72" on 12" blades. Any place that sharpens blades can regrind to a FTG. That is the grind that a ripping blade has and what is needed for a shaft machine as that is what you are doing. Your ripping along the shaft. I wouldn't screw up a Forrest blade for this purpose. Most of my blades are made by Imana which is an industrial grade blade made in Israel. Really good, heavy carbide that stays sharp and can be sharpened a number of times without becoming worn out.
Dick
Dick,
You are absolutely correct about the 60 teeth, I meant to say 60 and wrote 80 by mistake.
I will try The Imana blades, I am now using the Forrest. Thanks for the tip.
Rick Geschrey
I don't know how far you are from Chicago but that is where I got my first couple of blades. There's a place called Bull Sharpening Service who have done a lot of this type work for cue makers in years past. I imagine they are still in business. I have both bought blades and had them resharpened by them and they do great work as they know exactly what needs to be done.
Dick
I have built several but, like Dick, I don't sell them for liability reasons. Here are a few pictures as well as a tutorial for setting up the machine.
The most critical thing is the distance from the taper bar to the blade must equal the distance from the blade to the pivot point. If not you don't get a true 1:1 final cut ratio (.001 on the taper bar = .0005 per side on the shaft for a .001 size reduction).
www.murraytucker.com/joey2.htm
www.murraytucker.com/joey.htm
The most critical thing is the distance from the taper bar to the blade must equal the distance from the blade to the pivot point. If not you don't get a true 1:1 final cut ratio (.001 on the taper bar = .0005 per side on the shaft for a .001 size reduction).
www.murraytucker.com/joey2.htm
www.murraytucker.com/joey.htm
You are absolutely correct. I've seen other machines where the builder said that was not necessary and 10 years later they're still filing on taper bars trying to get them correct. Exactly 2 to 1 from the pivot and just mike your shaft you want and divide by 2 and you'll get the same taper.
Dick
I have 2 similar machines that I have built. Still dont have all the kinks out. Im getting small cut ridges in my passes. Im not sure what the problem is. I have about a 3 1/2 minute pass and the shaft rotation is 90 rpms. I can adjust the pass speed but the rotation is dictated by cheap chinese motors. These motors work well as far a performance but are not speed adjustable. My machines are joined together and have 72 and 80 tooth blades. Ive tried to reduce all vibration as much as I can. The shaft saw producted a pretty good finish. Id say about 180 grit. The Butt saw does a little worse. Ive tried slowing the pass speed down and it helps a bit but not much. Anyway both stop after the pass and I can reverse and proceed. Beats the heck out of router as far a swirl lines and ridges. I have a 4 head Bludworth CNC machine that I can use straight router bits in and the finish is not nearly as smooth. The spindles only turn about 18K so maybe thats why....
Sounds like you may be taking passes too fast. Another thing to do, when you're done making a pass, reset the same piece and cut it again, without making any adjustments to your depth of cut. That should help get some of the lines out. Can you install a rotary switch to slow down the motor?
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I think it has to do more on the blade's carbide. I think after grinding flat on top, the left side has to have some relief/chamfer.
So that it's not hitting the wood from that side while it's spinning.
1 to 1
You are partly righ. You get a 1 to 1 only if everything is running level. If the taper bar is higher or lower than the pivot point then it changes ther ration more than you think it would.
You are partly righ. You get a 1 to 1 only if everything is running level. If the taper bar is higher or lower than the pivot point then it changes ther ration more than you think it would.
From my experience your rpms are a little to slow, your feed rate is to fast but what is causing the longitudinal lines or cuts is the shafts position over the blade. It needs to be 90 deg. at the contact point. This is one of the hard parts of tuning. The shaft has to be positioned so that the top of the blade acts like a plane. It needs to shave off the wood. If lines are present then the edge or corner of the carbide is making contact. This is the reason that a standard kerf blade is preferred over a thin kerf. It gives a wider contact area making it easier to get the shaft to turn without the edge of the blade making contact. I had a 12" blade made with 3/8" wide carbide so as to really give me a lot of discretion in alignment but they had to use a double thick plate and it turned out so heavy I have never tried it out. Almost 400.00 wasted for an experiment.
As Murray just stated, for the machine to run at it's best the angle between the blade and the pivot point and taper bar must be level. At other angles or heights, the shaft will not be directly over the blade so the taper will be different and the cut will not be at it's best. The machine needs to be set up so that it runs it's best at your normal final taper size.
Dick