Taper turning attachment

[Seadog]

Having offered to do a little job for one of the forum members that involves machining a taper I thought I'd better get my finger out and instal the TTA I bought in January. It was quite a good buy at £340. That is until I bought some missing parts from Boxford. Add another £103

Anyway, it should be a doddle, clean it up, find some bolts and slap it on.

No it isn't! There are no holes in the rear of the saddle

OK, saddle off and set it up on the pillar drill after working out the hole pitch and roughly where it ought to sit. There is wiggle room as the rear bracket is slotted, scribe and centre punch and prepare to drill.

Maybe tram it first to make sure it's close.

Yup, within 2 thou, more than close enough.
What size is the thread? Hmmm, the travelling steady used 3/8" BSW so obviously this must be the same

Drilled and tapped, perfect job. Find some bolts and bolt it on, or not as the case proved to be, the slots are for 5/16 fixings Why I didn't think to check that I'll never know. No pictures here because I was too busy swearing.
Time for a red wine or three and mull it over for the evening.

 

[Seadog]

It's the start of another day, and I've mulled...

Open out the slots, maybe.
Make two bull-headed studs. I need a lathe for that...
Drill out larger, plug it and have another bash.
A 5/16" bolt just slides into the tapped hole so why not helicoil it. 3/8" BSW - 16tpi, 5/16" BSW - 18tpi, pretty close and nothing to lose.

Eh voila! it works a treat.

There are a couple of dowels, but they can be sorted out once the whole lot is aligned and I've bought a reamer.

Anyway, after all of that it went together nicely.

Cut a piece of silver steel of the right diameter and hardened one end to make a centre punch for the dowels. Stuck it in the collet chuck and used the Dremel clone with a small diamond disc to point the end. It came out really well.

The finished article (less dowel holes) ready to do a little modification on a tailstock quill.

 

[Seadog]

A couple of photos seem to have found there way into the wrong positions, sorry about that, but you get the gist, I hope

 

[Seadog]

The sharp-eyed among you may notice that the helicoil tap is 5/16" UNC. It's all I had but they are nice and snug. Incidently, one of the items I had to buy from Boxford was the bronze nut. Listed at a very reasonable £14 and a few pence on the spares page. Price confirmed by the spares manager, but when the pro-forma came through it was over £41. Now I know that's a reasonable price, but having been told it was one price then finding it was 300% dearer did hurt a little. What made it worse was that when I did a try fit to the slide, I couldn't get both screws in and it didn't sit squarely, the holes were both on the pi**. Rather than go through the agro of returning and finding that the replacement was most likely the same I opted to fix it myself. So i had to drill out and Helicoil those too. So that 5/16 set that has sat on the shelf for 20 years since it was last used has saved the day.

 

[ukracer]

It's the start of another day, and I've mulled...

Open out the slots, maybe.
Make two bull-headed studs. I need a lathe for that...

I am confused its a taper attachment you are fitting so you have a lathe...lol

 

[Seadog]

I do, but at the time it was in bits. I really didn't want to reassemble it to make some some studs for what I thought would be more of a bodge than the one I finally arrived at. If that makes any sense to you

 

[frank horton]

love to have 1 u lucky lad BUT in reality don't do enough to justify the cost.........got a capstan tailstock (5 or 6 drill type chucks) with my Colchester Student, thought that'd b handy......never used it in 15 years.........hahaha.......

happy days

 

[Seadog]

I doubt that I will either, Frank. I just had to have one. I'm on a mission to collect as many of the Boxford accessories as I can.

 

[God mode restorations]

love to have 1 u lucky lad BUT in reality don't do enough to justify the cost.........got a capstan tailstock (5 or 6 drill type chucks) with my Colchester Student, thought that'd b handy......never used it in 15 years.........hahaha.......

happy days

What Colchester. Roundhead .