taper bars vs boring head

digdug

digdug

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
As far as manual lathes go which way do cuemakers prefer to cut tapers, with taper bars or the boring head? What would be the pros & cons of each ? Thanks Doug
 
a boring head is not going to do anything that offsetting the tailstock wont do. unless you just want the convenience of keeping your tailstock on center. Also it will only do a straight taper, when taper bars can be profiled to do a contour
 
My shaft taper bar gives me a variable taper. My butt taper bar is just a straight taper that could probably be achieved by offsetting my tailstock.
 
The advantage with a taper bar or another carriage assembley, is the tailstock and lathe setup can remain unchanged(when using a carriage that has a regular cross-slide and a floating cross-slide)
Taper bars can be set up for set rates of taper and repeated quite quickly as well as other bars being available for special shapes/profiles.
For only making a few of something once in a while, a boring head/offset tailstock is fine compared to the time/outlay of a taper bar setup.
 
A taper bar will do a certain taper that it is set to do. One drawback is if that bar assembly were to move, say due to humidity changes, depending on what it's mounted to, it would change the dimensions of whatever you are cutting. Another drawback is if any debris gets stuck on the taper bar, the bearing will ride on it and cause a bump which can be a bi$%h to remove later. A boring head, once aligned properly, will give the same angle everytime, unless you move it, or remove it, or the bench the lathe is attached to moves. which would throw the bed slightly off, and then the tailstock. A boring head would be used only for a straight taper, not a shaft taper. One advantage, IMO, is you can move the boring head carefully with the adjusting screws to accomodate a slight change in the taper when working on other makers cues, and then move it back pretty accuratly alot quicker to what ever taper you normally use, compared to an adjustible taper bar.
Don't get me wrong, taper bars have their uses, I have 2 of Chris's and I use them both, very often..but, I also have 2 boring heads for flexability and use them quite a bit at times. ;)
Many tools to do many jobs,
Dave.
 
Both work fine. What I like about taper bars is the ease of use. One setting on the taper bar will taper a full butt, forearm or handle without changing anything. For cutting points the taper bar is much less likely to allow something to go wrong with slipping and such. But for ease of making a metal lathe or non-taper bar ready cue lathe do tapering without a lot of modifications, the boring head or off-setting live center makes it easy to do with zero modifications needed for the lathe. It also allows you to keep your tailstock on center.
 
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