What the best way to taper a shaft?

[rhncue]

Without reading everyones posts..........

Sanding longer than 30/60 seconds on a shaft=trouble.........

So I shouldn't be sanding longer than 30/60 sec interval?? I am assuming you are referring to the heat that is generated which could potential warp the shaft. Is there anything that I should be aware if I'm sanding the shaft down to size? thanks

I used a soft backed sanding block when sanding and it seem to have work great. My friend told me to use Norton 3x and it only took less than 10 min to take down a shaft to size.

I think he was meaning total sanding time. You want your shaft to come off your lathe or tapering machine as smooth as possible so that you can sand with a finer grit sand paper and for a shorter time. Any time you are sanding you are, of coarse, removing material and in so doing you are changing the taper that you so patiently put on your shaft dowel. If it comes off the machine needing 180 grit to start with, by the time you go through the different grits to get the shaft is smooth you've lost a quarter mm and greatly changed the profile. If the shaft comes out where you can start with 800 or 1000 grit, then very little time is spent, very little material is removed and the profile is changed very little.

I would say that I probably sand for close to 2 minutes on a new shaft. I usually start with 600 grit myself.

Dick

 

[Cue Crazy]

I think he was meaning total sanding time. You want your shaft to come off your lathe or tapering machine as smooth as possible so that you can sand with a finer grit sand paper and for a shorter time. Any time you are sanding you are, of coarse, removing material and in so doing you are changing the taper that you so patiently put on your shaft dowel. If it comes off the machine needing 180 grit to start with, by the time you go through the different grits to get the shaft is smooth you've lost a quarter mm and greatly changed the profile. If the shaft comes out where you can start with 800 or 1000 grit, then very little time is spent, very little material is removed and the profile is changed very little.

I would say that I probably sand for close to 2 minutes on a new shaft. I usually start with 600 grit myself.

Dick

That's one nice thing about turning Your own shafts. I usually start with 400 on Mine, but It's the 3m gray paper, and compared to the 3m gold backing w/black grit or norton which are alittle coarser papers, It's probably really only around 600 grit.