A Small Improvement to a Small Improvement

Before I started the Taig-centric blog I would post stuff on my other blog. A while back I posted that I had made a small improvement to my Taig lathe workarea by rising the lathe up on top of a toolbox. Well, Saturday I stopped at a garage sale and picked up a better toolbox for this purpose, a Waterloo middle toolbox. So now I have 4 drawers instead of 2, and less wasted space.

Making Some Small Delrin Washers

For an airgun project I had to make some small delrin washers.

The delrin was turned down to size and center drilled.

Then I drilled the ID to size.

I ground a thin (.032") parting tool that is not square at the front but tapered so as to generate less of a burr on the finished washer. I held it in the 1171 back toolpost.

The dowel pin captured the parted off washer as the parting tool is plunged into the work.

Adapting a Sherline Boring Head to the Taig Mill.

I had a Sherline boring head laying around and figured I should modify it to be used on the Taig mill.

The two parts were separated. Notice it uses the screw to push the part that holds the boring bars out from the body attached to the spindle. There is no way to adjust precisely in the other direction.

I put two leaf gages in the clamping slot to keep from collapsing it in the 4 jaw.

I turned the MT1 shank down to 3/8" It machined easily.

Mounted in a 3/8" ER16 collet.

With a cheap import carbide boring bar I got a lot of chatter.

Using a good HSS boring bar I managed to get an acceptable finish.

Have Blue's Blog and Frankie Flood...

Michael Guslick, "Have Blue", emailed me about his new blog. Not all the posts are about his work on the Taig, but using the "Machining" category to search will turn up some neat projects like his Taig CNC Mill engraving head. Michael also has a business supplying parts for paintball guns.

Michael recently took a metalworking class from Frankie Flood who most notably uses his Taig lathe to make his awesome Pizza Cutters. Frankie also has a new blog. Well worth reading.

Thomas Burgin Extends His Z Axis

Thomas Burgin sent in these pictures of his Z axis extension.

"Here's a few pics of a quick extending of the Z axis. Moved up 4 more inches then the max. Had to do some work on the end of some parts. This is problably not good for long term use though. I think I will make a better easier way of doing this for when I need the extra travel."

Side

Front

Back

Added to the pictures page.

I also added a link to new Taig User Matt Wellhouser's Blog.

Silvano Villaroel's Watch Case

Silvano Villaroel sent in these pictures of his first watch case made with his Taig lathe.

"I would like to tell you as well I finshed my first watch case the last weekend. I am very happy with that. I think there is a lot of things I could make better and I will but that will be on the second case I will began to work on soon."

Lots of parts!

(uploaded to the cartertools picture page as well)

John Bear Ross's Taig CNC Router Mount

John Bear Ross emailed me these pics. "I fabbed up an adaptor plate to mount a K2CNC router mount to my Taig's head, enabling me to mount a Bosch Colt router."

"Off comes the old spindle..."

"New Mount..."

"New Collets and Nut from Precisebits.com"

"And in she goes..."

Looks great.

John needed the higher speed for milling his wonderfully detailed military SF miniatures.

Pictures also uploaded to the Taig picture page. This blog is definitely forcing me to update pics more often.