Cutting Point

Hi
My friend and I are trying to cut point on a live center for
my wood lathe.
The diameter of the material is 1.500 diameter and we want the taper to come
to a point at 1.625 inches.
Our lathe has a powered compound but we are not sure how to set up
the angle of the compound or the feed to get the above results.

Any help would be appreciated!

olf20 / Bob

Hi olf20

Noted that you said 'live' centre.
Presumably you can lock the revolving part.
And presumably its not too hard to 'turn', and won't need to be ground.
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Not sure what you mean by powered compound .
Are you referring to what I call the topslide
My lathe has powered longitudinal and powered cross slide but I would never try to drive it like the kids toy 'Etchasketch' where they TRY to draw by turning two knobs for up down / left right to move the pencil pointer. The topslide is not powered.
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Why not do it the simple way.
The cross section of just the tapered point is a triangle 1.5" Base x 1.625 Height
Slice it through the middle gives a right angled triangle 0.75 x 1,625

So consider the angle at the tip of this smaller triangle.

Tan of that angle = Opposite side divided by adjacent. and
Opposite side is 0.75 whilst adjacent side is 1.625

So we are looking for the angle whose Tan is 0.75/1.625 or 0.461538461

This on the calculator gives an angle of 24.775 degrees.
Just set the topslide swivel round to give that cutting angle.
Depending how the protractor markings start on your lathe, you may have to set it at 180 minus 24.775 = 155.225 degrees.

To do the job lock the saddle and just use the topslide to gradually turn the taper.
( lathe spining backwards and cut on far side of blank)
The whole job would have taken less time that to type this.