Turning long tapers (42-47")

[evansmachine]

Well I think the customer was hoping for something a little more pro than a guy with a south bend and a bunch of emery. However it could work with a lot of time. But since they specified a machined finish, it's a non-starter in this case.

32mm swiss and you could have them done in short order.
[email protected] if you want a quote

 

[dangerboy]

Appreciate that, thanks. If it comes up again I would certainly look into some of the options presented here. There was a fair amount of gravy on this in spite of the machine parts manufacture.

I'm curious, what's the technique to deal with vibration? Is the bar fed as the head moves?
The critical thing for this job is just appearance. No chatter, blend marks, etc.

 

[boslab]

Longest taper I’ve made was on a mill between centres, couldn’t do it on my lathe too small, worked on the mill but took a long time, not a production method,
Still had to Emery smooth, slow, a cylinder grinder would have helped
Mark

 

[Jaxian]

Well if you had enough of these jobs for a whole lot less than a CNC you could get an old lathe with a tracer. This is my Monarch 62 with Air/Hydraulic tracer. 72" between centers. Just draw a 2d picture in CAD, send it to SendCutSend to get a template made out of flatstock, mount to those two pattern bars and let it eat. Be done in no time. No matter the shape, the tracer will follow it, as many different tapers and curves as you like. If you can CAD it you can make it. Not sure on max diameter, think like 8" or something for long shafts.

 

[EmGo]

Just draw a 2d picture in CAD, send it to SendCutSend to get a template made out of flatstock, mount to those two pattern bars and let it eat. Be done in no time.

You might discover that a 48" long part that's between an inch and a half inch in diameter is not quite as simple as that ...

 

[Whetstone]

I just went through this whole process, having to taper 350 spindles in silicon bronze. I also ended up building an extra long taper attachment for my Leblond lathe, but built a bearing block that travels on the carriage just in front of the cutter, works incredibility well, I can prep the ends on the W&W #3 turret lathe while the Leblond is cutting the taper. Finished part take about 6 minutes. Most of the parts are taking a 0.1875 to zero cut in one pass over about 38", but we had to build some newel posts from steel that has a 0.375 to 0.000 in one pass.