Building a tailstock for a 12” Rotary table

[Brent H]

Thanks @RobinHood - yes the drill was interrupted but I should have stopped and fired in one of the sharp stubby ones I have. Alas—- not a high vis item and I need more so the function. Hopefully it will get tested in the next couple weeks

 

[Brent H]

When I made the first part of the project I used the flange nuts off of my hold downs - so need more flange nuts. Decided to just whip up some -
For 1/2”-13 nuts the outer flange diameter is 1.125” and you machine off 0.125” for each hex so you are left with a nut that takes a 7/8” wrench. The flange of the nuts is 0.169” thick and the nut is 0.500 making the overall nut 0.669 high. The flange can be anything you want - typically would be 0.125” thick.

I machined some hot rolled 1-1/2 stock down to 1.125 - lathe going 500 RPM with a feed of 0.008/Rev taking 0.050” per pass with carbide cutter

then drilled out and tapped to 1/2-13. I am using a tap typical for a CNC application and it cuts like butter. I just chucked it in the drill chuck and with the tailstock left loose, turned the tap in by hand by rotating the lathe chuck by hand.

The bluing was to mark the cut lines and then it was over to the rotary table on the mill.

Mill was running 600 rpm with a 5/8” roughing end mill taking 0.125” per pass rotated 60° between passes.
After the nut was formed I chucked the piece back in the lathe and filed the relief on the end of the nut, knocked the sharp edges off the flats and the flange. I chopped the nut free on the bandsaw, put the hex back in the lathe chuck and faced it, counter sunk, and a bit more edge breaking with the file. Production continued by then facing, counter sink, drill, tap etc etc

So then I blackened the nuts (ended up with 7 out of the first piece of stock)

it went pretty quick! @architect stopped in to pick up some TIG metal and he got the tour . Great meeting you!!!

this project is now a wrap !

 

[YYCHM]

I love it So I decided to just whip up some flanged hex nuts I wish. One would be an all day project for me

 

[6.5 Fan]

Looks great, both the tailstock and your black nuts.

 

[Sailor]

Very nice.

 

[architect]

That was very cool for a newcomer to see! Thanks @Brent H for taking the time to show me his shop and all the fun toys! I have a tiny garage in the city but hopefully I can get get into into tooling eventually.

 

[Hruul]

Great information Brent. Thanks for taking the time to let us come along with you.

 

[Brent H]

Thanks @Hruul , I am hoping that I can now use this item to carry on with some cool gear cutting and a few other projects that may be interesting. I am hoping to get my tool sharpener up and running and perhaps have a date with @trlvn for some endmill sharpening and such to figure out how all that is supposed to go.

next projects include things like a ball turner for the lathe, gears of course - maybe have a go at making a rotary broaching tool and I have to start/more practice with the TIG doing some welding stuff.

I will try to post as much feeds and speeds and other details to help out - I have also parts to finish up for the Utilathe steady and follow rest and the CAD drawings for that as well....gonna be a busy 2021!