Your ER Spindle Collet Nut is OK

I received another bunch of emails from people worried that their ER Spindle nut was incorrectly manufactured. So I figured I'd mention it here.

You can see that there's an eccentric ring inside the nut. This is what throws people off. They insert a collet into the spindle, try and screw the nut on and it won't go on, or throws the collet off axis. Then they look at the nut and assume that the nut is defective as the ring isn't concentric. It does look wrong.

The proper way is to insert the collet into the nut until the eccentric ring snaps into the groove in the collet. This allows the nut to pull the collet out of the spindle when loosening it.

Then the nut is screwed on loosely, then the tooling is inserted into the collet and tightened fully.
Taig started putting a sheet explaining this in with the mills, but not the new 1045ER adapter, and who reads the paperwork anyway?

Dennis Hill's Patio Umbrella Fix

Dennis Hill sent in these pics of his patio umbrella fixes.

The fixed umbrella

"2 of the 8 ribs supporting the umbrella canopy were broken in the middle where the lifting ribs were attached. I milled the broken rib ends square and made inserts to fit inside the extruded alum ribs. Then I secured them with screws. The lifting ribs could then be remounted to the new alum rib inserts."

Closeup

"The umbrella column was broken clean off where it went into the patio table. I milled the column off square and then turned an alum insert to fit up inside the original column and down into the base support tube. I then constructed a small spring driven push button in the insert to allow the umbrella to be locked in a specific position within the column. The new column insert was attached to the original column with a bolt and lock nut hidden under an existing plastic shroud."

Another view.

Pictures also posted on the Pictures page.

Poor Man's Boring Bar

For an airgun project I'm working on I had to cut a 5/16" radius in a piece of steel.

I made a simple boring bar. There's a cross hole reamed to 3/16", a #10-32 setscrew in the center and a short bit made fron a broken end mill. I set the tool to cut the 5/16" radius. (3/8" bar diameter+1/8" tool sticking out of bar, for a circular sweep of 5/8")

I did a test piece in aluminum, feeding in then down, progressively.

Final cut.

Radius gage fits perfectly.

Stephen Ellacott's Tachometer and Tailstock Lever

Stephen Ellacott sent me these pictures.

"the tachometer I made that Shad was describing in the Taig group."

Measured with a multitester.

"and my version of the extended tailstock lever with a nice ridged finish for grip (and lots and lots of brass knobs!)."

Pictures also posted on the Pictures page.

Lew Bishop's Gimbals

Lew Bishop received a second hand Taig lathe from his brother in law and got it running for his first project. (pictures added to the Picture page.)

"I fly model airplanes and recently had to obtain a new radio. The gimbal sticks were too short and did not have sufficient adjustment to make them comfortable - so new stick grips were in order. The first three pics show the radio with both sets of gimbal tops - the originals are laying on the transmitter face with the new ones on the gimbals."

The old ones certainly are short.

A great first project.

His lathe.

Taig on Vacation 7/29-8/4

Taig will be on vacation between the 29th of July and August 4th. No orders will be shipped during that time. I don't get a vacation, so I'll be around as usual...

Rick Kernell's Compound Mod.

Just put these pictures up on the site as well.

Rick modified his compound slide for more positive clamping.

A good idea if you have problems with slippage although setting up becomes a bit more involved.

Drawings of the 1045 ER spindle adapter

Are available on the Taigmachines Weekly Update page, along with some powerfeed timeline information.

BTW, You'll see posts here from Felice, but it's me when I'm too lazy to sign into my other Google account...

Added Some Links, ER16 Collets

I added some links to the Taig pages:

• Matt Shumaker's E-bike project built with his Taig Mills
• "Luke Vader" Flickr Set of his Taig Lathe
• DoubleCAD is free.

I also sorted out the ER16 pricelist to show the three other collet sizes Taig offers.

Fisher Machine Shop, who makes the edgefinders I sell, has their own website now

Now a couple of pics you would have seen if you read my airgun blog.


Recessing a urethane piston seal.

Using the new Kenbo dremel holder to grind the seal to final size. It's so new it's not on his page yet, but you can email him.

Taig 1045ER ER16 to Taig Spindle Adapter

Taig mailed me a new accessory for the lathe, the #1045ER ER16 to 3/4"-16 Taig lathe spindle adapter.

The hexagonal portion threads onto the lathe spindle. The collet is inserted into the nut (snapping into the eccentric ring) and then screwed loosely into the body. Then the tooling or workpiece is inserted into the collet and the collet tightened. You will need two 1" wrenches to use this chuck as well as ER16 collets.

Here it is mounted on one of my two Taig lathes for testing.

I checked runout on the two lathes with several different pins and collets. Runout was between .0005" and .002" depending. While that may seem rather large on the high end there are a lot of little errors that stack up with adapters like this. For much work it's certainly better than the standard collets or chucks.

The long 3/8" double end mill below wouldn't go far enough into the spindle to chuck securely, but you can see a standard 3/8" fits fine. (runout on that endmill was .001")

Using the Adapter to hold steel rod for machining. It grips securely and on this steel rod showed under .001" of runout. This is far more versatile than the standard Taig collets for workholding as the ER16 collet will collapse 1/32" from nominal size so that a wide range of work can be held.

The part number and price:
1045ER $26.95 ER16 Collet Adapter

As with most of the accessories I sell it receives the 10% discount.