Bob Eckstein's Taig Lathe

Bob Eckstein sent in these pics of his lathe:

It took a bit longer than I had expected, but the Taig lathe is now a going concern.

The tailstock as delivered was a collection of sharp jagged edges. Judicious use of a fine file cleaned up the extrusions and made it a lot more pleasant to deal with. The motion of the ram was somewhat rough and uneven but a session with lapping compound took care of it. The handle is made of layers of CORIAN plastic laminated with epoxy and carved to shape. The knobs are from the hardware store, 10-32 thread. The chuck is a Craftsman keyless 3/8"

I didn't have a boring bar to use in truing the lathe jaws, and a carbide lathe bit made a real mess of it, so I took a cylindrical solid carbide milling cutter and placed it in the drilling tailstock. I closed the chuck very gently until there was the slightest contact and turned it slowly by hand, then tightened it a little more and continued until the jaws had been cleaned up. The milling cutter was small enough that I could run it to the back of the jaws and avoid having to remove them to file off the "lip". The whole process went very quickly. There is still a little run-out but far less than what the chuck had as delivered.

The motor is a 46 volt DC unit. Power supply is a 5 amp Variac with a full-wave rectifier. The motor has a 1/4" shaft and I found the perfect adapter to use the 1/2" pulley: It's a chuck sleeve for Hitachi routers to use 1/4" bits in a 1/2" router chuck. The Hitachi part number is 956-927Z, Model TR-12.


Variac

The little clamp is used to lock the handwheel on the carriage so you don't have to hold it to use the power feed. By the way, the power feed advances the carriage approximately .003 per revolution of the input pulley.

Milling The Rack Channel Off the Taig Lathe Bed

I wanted to see how hard it was to remove the rack channel from the bed for those who don't want to flip the bed around when retrofitting the new lathe power feed.

The channel.

I wanted to see if it could be sawn off easily using a hacksaw blade (without a frame, as the rack channel is too long). Short answer is that it would take you a very long time.

The bed set up on the mill.

I was able to mill almost the whole channel off in one pass.

Then I had to re-clamp to get the last little bit.

All gone.

Enough clearance for the lead screw coupling.

And the screw.

So if you have a mill it's doable. Without a mill you are probably better off just flipping the bed 180 and living with the foot at the other end.

New Pictures

Some new pictures sent in by Lew Bishop, Lou Somers, Michael Paznar and Norman Crowson.

Lew Bishop writes, "Finished a milling attachment similar to the one made by Dean Williams and now need to get a set of collets to avoid the jaws of the chuck (which seem to be attracted to my fingers). I think that using the stock Taig units at this time will work just fine as the range of size is OK . I'm enclosing the pics of the attachment to show my interpretation of Deans fixture. I actually got the attachment to work and immediately realized that rigidity is the mother of milling - had to add additional bolts to the T-slots - total four - rather than the two that fit the holes in the angle plate. "



Lou Somers:

I used a 100 tooth blade as an index for graduating lead screw dial. As a detent I used a block of aluminum set against the motor pulley to hold it square and simply moved it back and forth as I rotated the blade to the next tooth. Worked great. All re cuts were dead on.

I set the carriage stop at .125 and cut all 100 divisions, each one being .0005. I then reset the stop at .250 and recut every other division, each being .001. I then reset the stop at .375 and recut every tenth division, each being .005. Finally I removed the stop and made a full cut at every twentith division, each being .010.

I find this dial much easier to use than the one on the Taig carriage. As you can see there is no cursor on it. I graduated it simply as an exercise to see if I could do it. When nessecary I use an indicator on the carriage.

boring bar holder

This may or may not be news to anyone but if you should break or wear out a short belt snatch one of your wife's elastic hair ties. They're not a perfect solution but if you take light cuts they can help keep a project moving till you get a new belt.

For reverse twist to figure 8.


Michael Paznar:

drilling a "prop saver for my little rc airplane"

"I should mention I modelled mine after the black one on the left."


"the prop saver is the first thing I have machined, it involved mostly using my taig lathe but also my sherline 5400 mill to drill and tap the holes.soon this will be on my GWS slow stick."

Norman Crowson:

Thought you might enjoy seeing a tiny brass gear made on my Taig mill... used a rotary table plus a gear cutting wheel to tooth a gear blank I turned on my atlas lathe using a microscope and DI.The brass gear replaces the delrin gears (black in the photo) that go on my Bachmann Climax HO Locomotive... the delrin gears are splitting on their axles.One gear down and 11 to go to finish the project. More details are available by email to any that might have an interest.

a tiny universal joint or "swivel" made on the Taig mill and atlas lathe for Bachman Shay and Climax locomotives ...


Thanks Guys!

Pete Rees' Mill Accessories

Pete Rees sent in these pictures of some of his modifications to the Taig Mill:

"Some stops to limit table travel in the X direction on the mill. I have seen a few variations done by other Taig owners on your web site. Here is what I came up with. Since the T-slot in the front of the table will only accept a 4-40 size screw, and I wanted the stops to be as ridged and repeatable as possible, I decided to use two screws per stop. Each block is 1" long and 1/2" high and sticks out from the front edge of the table 1/2". Both screws thread into the same "nut" as you can see in the exploded view picture. I made two of them. They are plenty rigid and work great."




"T-nuts and clamps for the table. I decided to use 1/4-20 hardware, so the T-nuts are threaded for that size. I made them (and the clamps and table stops) from 12L14 steel. The threads stop just short of going all the way thru, so that the studs bottom out before making contact with the bottom of the table T-slot - just like the "real" ones for the bigger mills. They are also 1" long - probably overkill, but that's not a bad thing, right? It gives them lots of contact area with the table, and being so long, they will never ding up the sides of the T-slots from twisting forces when tightening down the nuts. The clamps are also basically just copies of full size versions. I looked and looked but could not find any where that sold them sized for 1/4" fasteners, so I made my own. However, since I made them, I now see that A2Z CNC has some extremely nice adjustable "rite height" style clamps for sale. Had those been available at the time, I would have purchased those. I may still yet.To go with the T-nuts and clamps, I bought an assortment of different length studs, swivel-flange nuts, and coupler nuts from McMaster-Carr. Also, McMaster has some very nice American Made "Taig size" step blocks. Those work great, too. Whoever invented those was a genius!"



"For a vice, I currently only have one - a 2" precision "screwless" vice. I think, if I remember correctly, it was made in India. It works great - no complaints. Although I needed to make some clamps to attach it to the table. I made 4 identical clamps from aluminum. If the vice is going to be clamped on the ends, I use 2 clamps. But if I need to rotate it 90 degrees, I use 2 clamps on each side, for a total of 4."


"My 'poor man's' parallels - pieces of square key stock, cut to 2" lengths. I have a selection of 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" pieces. They seem to work fine with as much precision as I need. They can be used either as one pair, or stacked up on top of each other - I.E. stack a 1/4 on top of a 3/8 to get 5/8."

"My cheapest and easiest mod to the mill (free!!): I wanted some kind of shield or cover to protect the bottom area of the Z lead screw and ways. I'm almost embarrassed to show you what I came up with. In the one photo with the vise in the foreground and the Subway cups (for swarf) in the background, you can see my solution - a 6" wide by 3.5" high piece of cardboard form a cereal box held in place by scotch tape. Don't laugh! It works great! It rarely gets in the way, but if it does, pealing the tape off takes all of 5 seconds. Some day I will make a nicer version out of similar rubber to match the other covers."

"I knew even before I got the lathe what my first project was going to be - a pair of extra heavy duty washers to replace the original two that hold the mill motor to its mount. The new ones are very thick and work good."


"A holder which mounts a dial indicator to the mill table to monitor X travel. This is way more complex than it needed to be, but I wanted to make it that way just for the challenge. Lots of hours in that part. Initially, most of the big areas were removed by very carefully using a hack saw. It is symmetrical, side to side, and can be mounted either on the left side of the table (as shown in the photo) or on the right side."






Thanks Pete!

The Kenbo Dremel Holder

My friend Kent is making Dremel holders for the Taig and other small lathes.

The Kenbo Dremel holder.

In use.

A page of pictures showing the tool is here.
Contact him for details, the price is $25.00

I have a post up at my other blog showing how I made some bit brace adapters for a friend.

The setup involved mounting a 5C collet block at a slight angle in the Taig mill.

The collet block needs a stop against it for repeatability.

Milling the tang of one of the adapters.

You get the idea.
5C collet blocks are handy.