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tapered hole with vertical mill ?

Marcia

Plastic
Joined
Aug 1, 2018
I have a small machine shop (gunsmith) and was attempting to learn how to use it fully. I have some minimal training, but ran up against one question when trying to make a wooden fixture for a gun checkering vise. I need to make a tapered hole in it for removable wooden pegs.
The chunk of hardwood is too long for my 13” lathe to hold in the chuck without hitting the ways.
I do not have any tapered reamers(but lots of other tools...).
How do I make a 3 deg. tapered thru hole in the wood using a vertical mill only? :scratchchin:
Hole major dia. 1.13 in., length 2.25 in.

Marcia
 
If you have a rotary table , mount the part on the table with the hole center aligned with the table's center of rotation....
Drill the hole through slightly under size

Use long end mill (as long as the depth required) angle the head of the mill to the single side angle required....
Move end mill into part and advance cutter against the hole side moving toward the angle on the tool/mill head....rotate the part via the rotary table....
Take small cuts till you are to size...Use largest end mill that easily fits into the starting hole for rigidity....


Or....turn a slug of your hardweood into a round plug larger than the ID of the tapered hole required.....Chuck the slug in the lathe and bore the tapered hole....
Bore a hole in the hardwood to fit the slug..glue the slug into the hardwood part....
Cheers Ross
 
I saw where a woodworker on YouTube ground an old keyhole saw blade to the desired taper. He would drill a straight hole the size of the small end of the taper and then enlarge it with the tapering tool. You would have to make a holder to chuck up the blade. Old school like they did 100 years ago.
 
I saw where a woodworker on YouTube ground an old keyhole saw blade to the desired taper. He would drill a straight hole the size of the small end of the taper and then enlarge it with the tapering tool. You would have to make a holder to chuck up the blade. Old school like they did 100 years ago.
YEAH.
That is a chairmaker's reamer. Lots of how to's via Google and YouTube.
 
I have a small machine shop (gunsmith) and was attempting to learn how to use it fully. I have some minimal training, but ran up against one question when trying to make a wooden fixture for a gun checkering vise. I need to make a tapered hole in it for removable wooden pegs.
The chunk of hardwood is too long for my 13” lathe to hold in the chuck without hitting the ways.
I do not have any tapered reamers(but lots of other tools...).
How do I make a 3 deg. tapered thru hole in the wood using a vertical mill only? :scratchchin:
Hole major dia. 1.13 in., length 2.25 in.

Marcia

Make a larger, straight cylindrical hole.

Fab smaller replaceable bushing - straight OD, tapered ID - on lathe from appropriate material. Plus the first spare.

Kiss the mill on its oily butt - so it dasn't get its feelings hurt from being left-out and screw-up the next job.

Wood ain't all that great for a holding a durable working taper against expansion and humidity changes without some help to begin with.

See log splitters.
 
A repairman's reamer has a 1 1/2" per foot taper. It is large enough for your needs if you can accept a different taper.
 
Marcia

If you want to private message your mailing address I'll drop a section of annealed FILE in the mail

You can make this what ever shape you want and hold it in a round bar with a slot and screws

For one hole don't heat treat it, For more than one hole dull red in shop light and brine quench

Thumbnail is lathe tools for wood I made from file
 

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Ross, that was awesome. I don't have a rotary table, but yes, I could make a sleeve! I'll keep my shop open for you anytime you need it in East Texas. :)
 
Ross, that was awesome. I don't have a rotary table, but yes, I could make a sleeve! I'll keep my shop open for you anytime you need it in East Texas. :)
 
JohnOder: 2 things: You're in Houston so I can come visit you next week! and you like radial engine powered winged beings. OR, you can fly it North to 7TA7 (our strip and shop)and show me in person. Great idea to use an old file. I'll get the grinder going!
 
Ross, that was awesome. I don't have a rotary table, but yes, I could make a sleeve! I'll keep my shop open for you anytime you need it in East Texas. :)

Something else you could fab.. when there is more time .. is a faceplate and drawbar to work woods off the BACK END of your metal-turning lathe's spindle.

Our school shop's wood turning lathe came already equipped for this. One classmate turned a rather large wooden salad bowl from glued-up laminate in contrasting light and dark wood.

He'd stand at the rear of the lathe, his graver over a floorstand tee rest.

There HAVE to be examples all over the wood-turning world, probably on YouTube as well, as this is a common need.

Page Two:

Wood needs respect, but in general the loads are easier to handle than they are for metals.

You don't need a "formal" rotab to manage this - not even for putting it on an angle.

Any "good enough", as-in low/no slop, axle and hub or bearing you can rig with a form of clamping to the mill table can work so long as loads are kept light, each go-round. I could grab one of the retired front hub spindles swapped-out off the Jaguar for this. It's actually a dirt-common Ford part, not just Jaguar, and many vehicles use similar ones. A flange drilled for bolts is on one end, the studs to mount brake rotor and wheel on the other. Decent bearings in between.

Both bandsaws and portable routers have been used as the "milling machine" with wooden jigs and simple shaft with a stock Oilite bushing - or sometimes for "onesies", just ignorant nails as "bearings". Time was, nearly every US State Governor and a whole lot more folks had a device in or near his office made with those tricks - around 40 of them from under my own hand. The "Autopen" signed his correspondence, mechanically. Their cases were wooden.

Now.. if only your mill was a horizontal.. some sort of faceplate, even if wood on a face-mill holder, and for shallow-long-axis woodworking - you have your large-swing "tee" lathe.

:)

2CW
 
Unfortunately, my "table" isn't rotary. Or tilting. But if you have one to donate.....?
 
A single hole in any but the most "sandy" of woods would be a simple task for a spade drill suitable ground from a dull file (I have many if you need one) or even turned from just about any steel . (assume you have a four jaw chuck for your lathe) if not, A dirty D drill can be turned out from round stock using a 3 jaw chuck, with the flat produced by off hand grinding.

2 1/2 inch bore depth... a file should due after pre drill. Heck refine the hole with sand paper glued to a wooden mandril. Wooden pegs are very forgiving.
 
WOW! That's thinking out of the box! I have a spider to use in the back end to hold gun barrels, So I guess I can work up a wood holder too. Not QUITE sure I know how to support the cutter, but I'll figure it out.
 
If you don;t have a lathe, you could "form turn" a pice of free machining steel just by holding a cut off tool in the milling vice at the desired angle and plunging the "tool" vertically into the edge in a scraping configuration. Roughing the blank in a series of steps with a turning tool held in the vice would be suggested. Broad form tool scraping is a refinement of form, not a heavy material removal operation.
 
WOW! That's thinking out of the box! I have a spider to use in the back end to hold gun barrels, So I guess I can work up a wood holder too. Not QUITE sure I know how to support the cutter, but I'll figure it out.


Back in the days....

Tapers were produced by cutting a series of diameters stepped over and gaged with a spring joint caliper.

File to fit.

It works on the mill in the same way it works on a lathe. You just need to look at it differently ;-)
 








 
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