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Building a tailstock for a 12” Rotary table

Brent H

Ultra Member
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

Ultra Member
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

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

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

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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

(Craig)
Premium Member
I love it:cool: So I decided to just whip up some flanged hex nuts:D I wish. One would be an all day project for me:rolleyes:
 

architect

Super User
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.
 

Brent H

Ultra Member
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!
 
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