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Sloan & Chace Lathe 5 1/2 Tailstock Question?

Suppo32

Aluminum
Joined
Jul 5, 2007
Location
South Carolina
Hello,

Does anyone know what the taper is of the Sloan & Chace 5 1/2 Tail stock i.e. what size Brown & Sharp or Morse Taper is it. Obliviously only a person who has one will be able to answer the question but it is a shot in the dark.

Thanks
Martin
 
Unfortunately the sole person I know of who could definitively answer this question off the top of his head, is
dead. So the conversation (with dave sobel) would a tad one-sided.

I would suggest you also consider Jarno taper as well. Your best bet is to measure the bore size as best
you can at two different depths, and then match to the one that seems the best.

I do know that hardinge used a completely proprietary taper (close to MT1) on their very early lathes, but
for some reason I seem to recall that sloan and chace used one of the standard ones.
 
Here's a thought:

make a rubber "cast" of the taper. There is a product called "Repro Rubber",and it is a moldable compound that is formulated to make "negative images" of various parts or surfaces for purposes such as getting measurements or replicating them. We used "Repro Rubber" to mold against worn turbine shaft packing box journals, to get an idea of how deep and how much scoring and wear had occurred on the journals. It was inaccessable for measurement with things like depth mikes and parallels, so we used the "Repro Rubber". The stuff mixes up easily, and is packed into or against whatever it is that must be measured or duplicated. I'd suggest getting the blue "repro rubber", and packing some of it into the tailstock quill on the Sloan and Chace lathe. Drive a long deck or drywall screw into the Repro Rubber before the stuff sets. This would give you a handle to pull the rubber "cast" out of the tailstock quill. You will then have a male taper "model" to measure off of to determine what taper the tailstock quill has. It is not necessary to get the whole distance of the tailstock quill filled with the "Repro Rubber". A couple or inches or a bit more would be sufficient. As long as you can get diameter measurements over a known length, you can then convert these to "taper in inches per foot" or "taper in degrees". Measuring the large end of the taper at the mouth of the tailstock quill and knowing the approximate length and the taper in inches per foot, you should then be able to match up the taper to see if it is anything standard such as Jarno or Morse. B & S tapers were more used on milling machines and dividing heads. Morse and Jarno tapers were the common ones for lathe spindles and tailstocks. If you get some off-the-wall taper that does not match up or come close to anything standard, then you know that S & C used their own taper.

The "repro Rubber" should be available from Flexbar, a supply company, and possibly from McMaster or MSC. I've had good luck with it when using it for metrology in places where I could not get in with any measuring instruments.
 
I would find it difficult to get an accurate diameter measurement with a caliper on something compressible like rubber. An optical comparator would do the trick, though.

I made a cast of a Hardinge taper bore once using Cerrobend, a bismuth alloy that melts at 158 degrees F. A wad of paper or a piece of wood can safely plug the bottom of the hole. I did cast the metal around a long screw to make a handle. Cerrobend is plenty hard, so it is easy to measure. The metal can be melted and reused many times if you do not get it too hot. Keep in mind that it melts in hot water, so an open flame is overkill.

I have seen bismuth alloy sold on eBay.

Another old machinists' trick is to make the cast model by melting pure sulphur. Don't let it burn and don't breath the fumes. It makes a nice hard model once it cools.

Larry
 
" It makes a nice hard model once it cools."

This won't help the OP, but it will make him smile which is half the battle.

Sulfur sets up rock hard. Former co-worker had this story from WR Grace where he had worked
for some time: It was a manufacturing site, and they had sulfur delivered by tanker truck. The
stuff is heated for transport and shipped molten, so they can pump it around.

The truck driver hooked up the delivery hose and went inside for a cup of coffee. While he was
inside the hose blew off a fitting, and the entire truckload was pumped into the employee parking
lot - which happened to be in a sort of depressed area.

The sulfur filled up the lot to a depth of a few inches, and locked all the employee's cars in place.

They had to jackhammer the cars free, that's how hard it sets up. Also molten sulfur de-vulcanizes
rubber tires. So WR Grace had to buy all new tires for their workers.

Sulfur. Great stuff.
 
There is a couple of Sloan and chace lathes for sale on eBay right now. Perhaps you could ask the sellers what tore they have- they might have tooling that's marked , or even just know from experience!
 
Years ago, before the arrival of portable rotary hammer masonry drills, before the invention of various types of resin grouts, and before the invention of wedge-type anchor bolts, putting anchor bolts into concrete or masonry was a major job. The holes were drilled by hand, using a "star" drill or "fishtail" drill. Both of these were struck with a hammer and lifted/turned a portion of a turn between hammer blows (known as shaking the drill). On holes of any size, this was a two-man job. The fishtail drill was forged to open the bottom of the drilled holes in the masonry a bit larger in diameter than the hole. Once the holes had been drilled and opened at the bottom, the anchor bolts could be set. If the holes were large enough, a mix of sand/cement could be packed in around the bolts, but shrinkage was a factor. The alternatives were to use sulphur or lead.

In either case, the sulphur or lead was melted and poured into the hole around the anchor bolt. The sulphur set hard, and was sufficiently strong, as Jim Rozen notes, to resist the shear load when the anchor bolts were put under load. The lead was another matter. It shrank on cooling, so the mechanics had to peen the lead in the annular space between the anchor bolts and the walls of the holes. This was done using long offset chisels, commonly called "yarning irons", as used by plumbers on cast iron soil pipe joints.

To improve upon the use of the sulphur, some firms marketed anchor setting compounds made with sulphur, iron filings, and whatever else seemed to work. Either way, it was a stinky proposition. Melting anything with sulphur on a plumber's stove or similar produces fumes and these are quite irritating or worse. Get those fumes in your lungs and the sulphur dioxide from the fumes combines with the moisture in your breath and you have sulphurous acid in your respiratory tract and sinuses.

The "Rerpro Rubber" is sold as a "metrology compound". It is a form of rubber, but it sets up to quite a hardness. It is semi-flexible, as is needed to "peel" a negative cast off some parts. The stuff we used for getting casts of the wear profiles on turbine shafts set up to a very high durometer hardness, so much so that I could use depth mikes and parallels to get some idea of the depth of the scoring on the shaft journals. The stuff is pricey, as even the "trial kit" or ""sample pack" is about 70 bucks. The other good part of using "repro Rubber" is no release agent is needed. Interestingly, the stuff is strong enough to be used by equine vets and farriers for horse hoof bonding and repairs to split or cracked hooves.

I've used the "Repro Rubber" a number of times and never had a problem using measuring instruments upon it. For getting the data on the tailstock taper, I am sure the Repro Rubber would work fine. Mark off a length using a fine point "Sharpie", and note the length. It need not be any particular dimension so long as two different diameters can be measured. The longer the length, the more chance of getting an accurate and reasonably close value for the taper in inches per foot. I've had to measure and determine the amount of taper on unknown tapers a few times, admittedly on actual male tapered parts (fitted tapered bolts, large tapered dowels). A light touch on the micrometer to get the diameters at large and small ends and some quick math (be thankful for today's pocket calculators- I am old enough to have done this kind of shop math longhand with a pencil) and a reasonably close value for the taper can be obtained.
 
" I am old enough to have done this kind of shop math longhand with a pencil..."

You're slipping Joe. You're supposed to say you had to chisel it into stone tablets using
roman numerals...!

=)
 
Hi,

Well I contacted one of the sellers and they had a dead center that went with the tailstock and the measurements were as follows Diameter of the large end roughly .429 in Diameter of the small end .328 in . Looks close to a Brown and Sharp no. 4 as far as I can tell.
I will find one and try it out.

Martin
 
Martin:

Before you jump into getting a B & S Number 4 center, try to calculate the taper in inches per foot based on the two measurements you have taken on the dead center.

first: clean the dead center and the female taper of the tailstock thoroughly using something like automotive brake cleaning solvent to remove any gunk or oil.

Second: feel the inside of the tailstock's female taper with your finger as far as is possible to be sure there are no burrs or damaged areas where some previous
user might have spun a center or drill chuck arbor in the tailstock.

Third: if the female taper feels free from damage, get some soapstone or chalk and draw four (4) lines axially on the sides of the male taper on the dead
center. Then: insert the dead center into the tailstock quill until it just seats. Do NOT drive it home or rap it to get the tapers to mate and lock
together. Instead, with a light pressure pushing the center into the tailstock quill, turn the center a turn in one direction, then back again.
Carefully remove the center from the tailstock and inspect the chalk lines. If there is uniform contact, the chalk lines will be smeared or partially
rubbed out over their full lengths.

If the center is not an exact match for the tailstock quill, the chalk lines will be partially rubbed out and partially intact. Depending which end
of the chalk lines is intact vs rubbed out will tell you if the center you have is too shallow or too steep a taper to match the tailstock's female
taper.

This is a simple test, and I'd suggest you try it before you jump into the purchase of a B & S Number 4 center. If the taper on the dead center shows good contact based on the chalk line test, then calculate the taper on the dead center in inches per foot. This is done as follows:
-first: take a small combination square and set it off the small end of the dead center. Using the square set to some convenient reading (say 1/2" to 1"
off the small end), make a pencil mark on the center using a sharp hard lead pencil.

-second: set the square to another convenient distance further up the center towards the large end. Make a second pencil mark

-third: subtract the lesser of the two readings on the combination square from the larger, and this is the distance along the centerline of the dead
center between the two marks. Write this distance down.

-fourth: using a micrometer, and taking care to hold the mike so it is square to the centerline of the dead center (a good eye helps here), take a mike
reading so that the edge of the face of the mike spindle and anvil just come tangent to the pencil mark. Do this with the edge of the spindle and
anvil of the mike on the side of the pencil mark towards the small end of the center's taper. Write each reading down.

-fifth: subtract the smaller mike reading from the larger. Write this figure down. Divide it by the length between the pencil marks. This is the taper
expressed in inches per inch. Multiply by 12 and you have the answer in inches per foot.

-sixth: take the overall measurements of the center (large diameter, smallest diameter, and overall length of the taper), along with the calculated
amount of taper in "inches per foot", and see what taper matches up most closely. I do not like nor trust measurements taken using dial or
digital calipers for this kind of work. I prefer to use outside mikes and a small combination square and a 4H pencil (hard lead). You may not
get a taper in inches per foot that exactly matches any standard taper, but if you are within a few thousandths of an inch/foot, you are
fairly certain of having a match with a standard taper (Morse, Jarno, B & S).

It is entirely possible that Sloan and Chace had some taper of their own. Plenty of machine tool builders were known to do this sort of thing with milling machine and lathe collets, as well as with some arbors. The last method to determine the taper is kind of an "absolute" method. Taking the rough measurements off the dead center's taper, and the calculated taper, convert it to degrees of taper. Turn a piece of mild steel or aluminum for a short distance to this taper (or angle), but leave it larger than the actual finished size of the taper. Try this piece in the tailstock using chalk or Prussian Blue. See which way the taper (or angle of the compound) needs to be adjusted. Tap the compound lightly with a piece of brass and look at the angle scale with a good light and magnifier. A very small tweak is all that you want to adjust the angle of the compound. Very small adjustments produce major changes in this kind of thing. A few tweaks, and you should be turning a taper that is a wringing fit that locks in the tailstock's taper. Read the angle on the compound of the lathe (or the taper bar of a taper attachment if you are turning the taper in a lathe so equipped). Get the taper converted into "inches per foot", and with the overall dimensions, you are really in a good place as far as matching the taper to something standard- or determining S & C used their own taper.

I recently did a job in my shop of truing and turning some aftermarket motorcycle alternator rotors to correct diameter. The rotors mounted onto a male taper on the front end of the crankshafts. I had no taper data. I had one original Bosch rotor that had bad windings, so at least I had a female taper gauge known to be good. I had no other crankshaft to measure the taper on, just three alternator rotors to turn true and to correct diameter. I got a very approximate taper and set the taper bar on my lathe's taper attachment. With that first setting, I took a light cut on a piece of 1" diameter mild steel bar. As soon as I had just enough taper to enter the taper in the original Bosch alternator rotor. I used the chalk method at first, and it took two or three tweaks of the taper bar. When the chalk test showed good contact and the tapers seemed to "wring together and lock", I cleaned things with solvent and used a very thin coat of Prussian Blue on the male taper to confirm the fit. I had a good mating taper. I drilled and tapped the end of the arbor for a bolt, as per the actual crankshaft, and proceeded to true and turn all three rotors. The laminations were about 0.015" oversize, and the slip rings (copper) were badly out of true and roughly finished.

The mating taper was the key to the job. A little rough measuring, some work on a scratch pad, and some trial and error got me where I needed to be. Now I have a "service tool" for turning and cutting other aftermarket alternator rotors. It does not take much of a difference between locking tapers to get things where they do not mate and lock together. A "standard taper" that "looks like it might work" needs to be confirmed by either good measurements and calculations on the dead center, and by contact (chalk or Prussian Blue) checks on the dead center. No sense ordering a B & S center only to find it is close but not quite an exact mating fit.
 
Joe, I Thank you for the Great Advice and I am going to try that! I really appreciate everyone's advice it has been very helpful!!!

Martin
 
Much has been said about the classic method of determining taper from two diameters and the distance between them. I mentioned the optical comparitor in passing. An inside taper can be measured with two different size balls and a depth mike. A sine bar, surface plate and height gage is another possibility.

But a patent was filed in 1954 for a really elegant precision measuring device for tapers, the Taper Micrometer. I have both external and internal models in several sizes. The external models have an integral one inch sine bar and the internal models have a two inch sine bar. Both types have a standard inch micrometer head with a tenth vernier. The axis of the taper has to be exactly parallel with the axis of the anvils in order to get an accurate result. Otherwise, it is pretty easy to use.

My smallest internal Taper Mike (No. 2) will do a Morse 3, but nothing smaller. I have a larger internal No. 3 and am still looking for the internal No. 1.

Taper Mike patent: Taper micrometer

Larry

Inside No2 1.jpgInside No2 3.jpgTaper Mike 1 1.jpgTaper Mike 1 2.jpgTaper Mike 1 3.jpg
 
Damm it Larry now there is another tool that I need to look for !! The internal taper mic.I have the same OD one as your third picture ,rather clever device !
 
Hello,

Does anyone know what the taper is of the Sloan & Chace 5 1/2 Tail stock i.e. what size Brown & Sharp or Morse Taper is it. Obliviously only a person who has one will be able to answer the question but it is a shot in the dark.

Thanks
Martin

Martin:
Perhaps I can shed some light on the “shot in the dark” question you posed in the Practical Machinist Forum, on 03-16-2016. I have a Sloan & Chace -5-1/2 of unknown vintage with the #761 stamped in the vertical portion of the right end of the bed. I presume this may be a serial number. Do you have any info on vintage and ser #’s ?
Back in the mid 1950’s I engaged a local veteran machinist to fabricate a drill chuck arbor for my S & C by duplicating the taper on one of its dead centers. The resultant tapered arbor did fit very well in the tail-stock but the chuck I had selected was of marginal quality. Moreover, for this job, the old machinist advised me that the inches of taper per inch of taper length was identical to that for the JACOBS #33. More recently, having acquired a much better quality drill chuck which required a more complex arbor, I re-visited the taper situation. To do this I mounted one of my two dead centers between centers located in the spindle and tail-stock. Then I secured a dial indicator in a bracket attached to the tool post slot in the compound. Thus, by incrementally advancing the compound screw, the dial indicator would track the taper as a function of the linear distance travelled. An average of 19 data points taken over most of the taper’s length gave me 0.0638” taper/ inch of linear length. The angle associated with this taper is 1.83o. Published data for the JACOBS # 33 taper gives 0.0635” taper/inch of linear length with an associated angle of 1.82o. In my opinion, the old time machinist had it right!
Subsequently, by off-setting the S & C compound from 0o to my best estimate of 1.8o , using steel blanks supported between centers and driven by the time proven lathe dog/catch plate combination, I have successfully produced three well-fitting tapers for a new drill chuck arbor and a ball center. In order for the tail-stock tapers to release properly from the tail-stock socket, they have to be from 2-3/16 to 2-1/4” in length and have a small-end diameter in the 0.300 to 0.315” range.
I hope this is useful
Joe
 
sobel

Martin:
Perhaps I can shed some light on the “shot in the dark” question you posed in the Practical Machinist Forum, on 03-16-2016. I have a Sloan & Chace -5-1/2 of unknown vintage with the #761 stamped in the vertical portion of the right end of the bed. I presume this may be a serial number. Do you have any info on vintage and ser #’s ?
Back in the mid 1950’s I engaged a local veteran machinist to fabricate a drill chuck arbor for my S & C by duplicating the taper on one of its dead centers. The resultant tapered arbor did fit very well in the tail-stock but the chuck I had selected was of marginal quality. Moreover, for this job, the old machinist advised me that the inches of taper per inch of taper length was identical to that for the JACOBS #33. More recently, having acquired a much better quality drill chuck which required a more complex arbor, I re-visited the taper situation. To do this I mounted one of my two dead centers between centers located in the spindle and tail-stock. Then I secured a dial indicator in a bracket attached to the tool post slot in the compound. Thus, by incrementally advancing the compound screw, the dial indicator would track the taper as a function of the linear distance travelled. An average of 19 data points taken over most of the taper’s length gave me 0.0638” taper/ inch of linear length. The angle associated with this taper is 1.83o. Published data for the JACOBS # 33 taper gives 0.0635” taper/inch of linear length with an associated angle of 1.82o. In my opinion, the old time machinist had it right!
Subsequently, by off-setting the S & C compound from 0o to my best estimate of 1.8o , using steel blanks supported between centers and driven by the time proven lathe dog/catch plate combination, I have successfully produced three well-fitting tapers for a new drill chuck arbor and a ball center. In order for the tail-stock tapers to release properly from the tail-stock socket, they have to be from 2-3/16 to 2-1/4” in length and have a small-end diameter in the 0.300 to 0.315” range.
I hope this is useful
Joe

When I was still working and Dave was still around I had a number of phone conversations with him.One thing he told me was that that type of lathe could be ordered with What ever type of taper the customer wanted.My P&W #3 had the jarno taper and the 3PN collett which was the standard.
If the customer wanted 3C collett and #1 MT tailstock P&W would deliver.The same went for all Bench lathes as they were known at that time.These machines made all the small parts of everything in that day and age.A facility could have 100 machines on a floor each set up for a single operation on one of the parts.So measure carefully,according to Dave.
 
Hello,

Sorry about getting back to so late. If you need any thing for your S&L let me know because I have some extra accessories and collets.

Martin
 
Joe, I have some PDF that came from the factory. It shows all the accessories etc. And I have extra accessories and collets if you need anything.

Martin
 
Qt [One thing he told me was that that type of lathe could be ordered with What ever type of taper the customer wanted.]
I have seen grinders with other tapers ordered..
Guess it would be good to measure the big end and indicate travel one inch of taper for starters.

Machine Tool Shanks (Tapers)

Sloan & Chace Lathes
from here it looks like a morris #2 or #3
* Thanks TD, I spelt it Wong..should be Morse Taper.
 
Last edited:
Qt [One thing he told me was that that type of lathe could be ordered with What ever type of taper the customer wanted.]
I have seen grinders with other tapers ordered..
Guess it would be good to measure the big end and indicate travel one inch of taper for starters.

Machine Tool Shanks (Tapers)

Sloan & Chace Lathes
from here it looks like a morris #2 or #3

Uh oh, those morris tapers are impossible to find.
 








 
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