# Taig lathe mods



## nautilus29 (Sep 23, 2017)

I recently decided that I am going to purchase a Taig mini lathe.  Even though I'm not planning on making the purchase till the end of the year I want to plan out, and possibly even build some modifications, so that they are ready when the machine arrives.

My first project is to hopefully give myself some more carriage travel by designing a new tailstock.  A complaint I've seen a lot with these smaller lathes is that with the shorter bed lengths by the time you put a tailstock on the lathe you loose most of your carriage travel.  This is especially a problem with Taigs tailstock as the carriage practically can't travel under the tailstock at all because of its design.  

During my research I came across Walter Maisleys YouTube channel, and the many modifications he's made to his Taig.  I really liked his tailstock design, and although he had some issues with rigidity, I thought I could improve upon it and make a more stable design.  Basically his tailstock rides on a rail next to the lathe which allows his carriage to travel right under the tailstock allowing him full use of the bed.

I attached PDF files of my redesign.  I'd like to know what you guys think, and if you see any flaws so far. I forgot to write down materials on the prints.  Everything will be made of aluminum except the rails and legs,  which will both be made of ground stressproof steel.

I don't have the actual workings of the tailstock designed yet.  I thought about buying a 4 or 6 inch long er16 holder and modifying it to be my tailstock holder. Im getting the er16 headstock,  so I'll already need er16 collets. 

View attachment tailstock assembly.pdf


View attachment components.pdf


View attachment base.pdf


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## XD351 (Sep 23, 2017)

Is there a reason why you  don't just buy a bigger lathe ? 
I also own a taig but compared to  a 9x20 they are pretty limited and can't cut threads .
That being said i do love playing around on that little lathe and i do like the lever tailstock !


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## nautilus29 (Sep 23, 2017)

XD351 said:


> Is there a reason why you  don't just buy a bigger lathe ?
> I also own a taig but compared to  a 9x20 they are pretty limited and can't cut threads .
> That being said i do love playing around on that little lathe and i do like the lever tailstock !



Because I already own one lol.  I have a SB 9 x 15, and I can use the 13 and 15 inch lathes at work.   After making  a small Stirling engine on a large lathe I realized I could use something a little smaller.  Plus I want something i can put in a desk in the office and play around with.

You mentioned having a taig...  does yours have the metal plate on the bottom to mount it to the board?  If so could you measure the height width and length of it?  Also the height from the bottom of the extrusion to the bed of the lathe?  I emailed taig and their rep have me crude dimensions,  id like to make sure I have my design right.


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## XD351 (Sep 24, 2017)

The mounting plate measures :
5-9/16 long 
2 -13/32 wide 
3/8 thick 

From the bottom of the mounting plate to the top surface of of the bed  is 2-3/8
Top of bed to spindle centre line  2-9/32.


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## nautilus29 (Sep 24, 2017)

XD351 said:


> The mounting plate measures :
> 5-9/16 long
> 2 -13/32 wide
> 3/8 thick
> ...



Thanks for the help!


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## canadianhorsepower (Sep 24, 2017)

XD351 said:


> I also own a taig but compared to  a 9x20 they are pretty limited and can't cut threads .



I have a Taig also and there is an attachment that you can use to cut thread with it.
I never bother making one I have 2 other lathe plus a CNC one.


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## canadianhorsepower (Sep 24, 2017)

If I can make any suggestion
Get the riser block kit , love it 
and mount it in an angle, easier to clean, see your work the picture is one of my other lathe
slanted.


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## bazmak (Sep 24, 2017)

Something i have never seen or thought of.Does it have any problems
and what advantages do you find


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## canadianhorsepower (Sep 25, 2017)

bazmak said:


> Something i have never seen or thought of.Does it have any problems
> and what advantages do you find



Hi Bazmak

there is absolutely no problem. 

as for the advantage their is many:thumbup:
easier to see your work ( cutting tool location )
you don't have to look over your tool.
it's also safer,no chance of cloth to catch in the chuck
none of the shredding stays on your bead ( the pan was removed when i took the picture )
you have a better control on your handle. Your wrist are in a normal
position, and not broken like the original set up.The reason I did this lathe first it's beeing transform to a CNC.

one thing I forgot to mention you can easily mount a plexiglass with a hinge to see your work, because
you are looking in straight line with the plexi glass there is no distortion of what you are looking at

many if not all CNC lathe are slanted.


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## Wizard69 (Sep 25, 2017)

After taking a look at the drawings I'm going to have ot do a thumbs down.   Why?   Well lets consider these issues:

1.    The long round rods leave a lot to be desired for support.In fact I'd have to worry about ringing and oscillation that you wouldn't get with a more conventional tail stock.

2.   The ""tailstock"' is further cantilevered off the rods above.  This puts a twisting moment on the rods and tailstock.

3.   Alignment will be a bear.

4.   If you expect to use the tailstock for traditional uses like drilling you will have to deal with twisting of the tailstock and supporting mechanism.     While the torque applied is different than #2 above , you only have 3/4" rods that will spring under common operations such as drilling.



So obviously I'm disinclined to go this route.   I have to ask seriously though, why not just extend the bed length?  I believe I've seen examples of this on the web already, it seems like a more rational approach.   if you still don't like the TAIG tailstock you can design a new one.

Another approach would be to buy another TAIG bed and run it parallel to the current one.    The cast a tailstock that overhangs the original bed.   At least with this route you can make for a very stiff tailstock and be able to control twisting moments to a greater extent.   it is still less than ideal.   A variant of this is to have the cross slide ride on the auxiliary ways at the front of the machine.   This would be a bit like the massive lathes that used in industry to turn turbine shafts and other huge pieces.  The first variant here can give you more length between centers but I'm not convinced it is any better than end to ending an extensions set of ways for a conventional arrangement.   

I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing this as a good idea.  To each his own but if you really want to try something like you have laid out do beef it up as much as possible.   You mentioned the original designer had issues, I'm betting that is a massive understatement.



nautilus29 said:


> I recently decided that I am going to purchase a Taig mini lathe.  Even though I'm not planning on making the purchase till the end of the year I want to plan out, and possibly even build some modifications, so that they are ready when the machine arrives.
> 
> My first project is to hopefully give myself some more carriage travel by designing a new tailstock.  A complaint I've seen a lot with these smaller lathes is that with the shorter bed lengths by the time you put a tailstock on the lathe you loose most of your carriage travel.  This is especially a problem with Taigs tailstock as the carriage practically can't travel under the tailstock at all because of its design.
> 
> ...


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## nautilus29 (Sep 25, 2017)

To be honest with you wizard, I originally designed it to be much more rigid.  I then drew it up to scale and it was giant compared to the lathe itself.  3/4 seemed small to me at first but honestly I think it scales with the work I can do on this lathe. I calculated the weight of this design and it's only a couple of pounds less then the lathe itself.  Even though weight doesn't mean it will work,  I think it at least shows that compared to the lathe it's not that small.

I would have never considered this idea except for how well the original one actually did work.   His was designed with only one bar and the tailstock was held upright with a keyway slot on that bar.  Then he added a side adjustment to his tailstock with a dovetail, and had one screw on the top to tighten that down instead of tightening against the dovetail.   Considering all of that he put a 7/16 drill in the tailstock and drilled a piece of steel.  His tailstock pushed between .003 and .008 thou.  I didn't think that too bad considering the buildup, and drilling a 7/16 hole into steel on this lathe is probably pushing it to its limit.

All that being said I really like the bed next to the bed design you mentioned.  This could definately add rigidity, and if I raised the tailstock bed up some the tailstock could be mounted better since it wouldn't have to have a riser on it.  I could also design a taper attachment that could use that bed as support.  I did think about getting the sherline longbed, but I'm trying to keep the lathe as short as possible for both work bench space, and so I can move it around easier.   Thanks for your honest opinion.  I don't want to put a bunch of time into something that ends up needing a complete overhaul.


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## Wizard69 (Sep 26, 2017)

At work we have all sorts of industrial slides in use for everything from specialized grinder to general automation.   My  reluctance with round bar slides is the result of man of them being long for the bar size.   Such slides can work perfectly well over shorter distance.

The question then becomes is the distance you have with those bars too long for the diameter and the work loads you will have on them.   I suppose a good mechanical engineer could answer that question with great precision but that isn't me.   The only two issues I have are ringing or vibration in the rods and deflection under load.   Lets just say the possibility of problems makes me nervous but we need to temper that with the idea that this is a TAIG and thus you won't be putting 5 horsepower of energy into the work.   One other thing to consider the best of the dual rod slides I've worked with have been designed to a very high level of precision and are tight, that is almost zero play in the rod bearings.   That is a tough one to achieve without binding at one end or the other of the stroke.   The dovetail approach is probably easier to get working to a high degree of prices fit up.  

Now that I've slept on this for a night, I'm seeing some other possibilities that might be worth considering.   Lets say you go forward with the two rod idea but spread them out just a bit more to put a leadscrew between them.    You then get a very nice way to drive the tailstock back and forth.   You might also be able to address the tails tock fit on the rods with eccentric bushings.   I believe there was a commercial lathe made at one time that had really large steel bars for ways that used bushings to compensate for wear.   Another possibility here is to go with a #2 morse taper for greater flexibility in tooling at that end.

So I'm not trying to completely dismiss the ida here I'm just worried and part of that might be due to thinking more along the line of the larger stuff I work on at work.




nautilus29 said:


> To be honest with you wizard, I originally designed it to be much more rigid.  I then drew it up to scale and it was giant compared to the lathe itself.  3/4 seemed small to me at first but honestly I think it scales with the work I can do on this lathe. I calculated the weight of this design and it's only a couple of pounds less then the lathe itself.  Even though weight doesn't mean it will work,  I think it at least shows that compared to the lathe it's not that small.
> 
> I would have never considered this idea except for how well the original one actually did work.   His was designed with only one bar and the tailstock was held upright with a keyway slot on that bar.  Then he added a side adjustment to his tailstock with a dovetail, and had one screw on the top to tighten that down instead of tightening against the dovetail.   Considering all of that he put a 7/16 drill in the tailstock and drilled a piece of steel.  His tailstock pushed between .003 and .008 thou.  I didn't think that too bad considering the buildup, and drilling a 7/16 hole into steel on this lathe is probably pushing it to its limit.
> 
> All that being said I really like the bed next to the bed design you mentioned.  This could definately add rigidity, and if I raised the tailstock bed up some the tailstock could be mounted better since it wouldn't have to have a riser on it.  I could also design a taper attachment that could use that bed as support.  I did think about getting the sherline longbed, but I'm trying to keep the lathe as short as possible for both work bench space, and so I can move it around easier.   Thanks for your honest opinion.  I don't want to put a bunch of time into something that ends up needing a complete overhaul.


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## nautilus29 (Sep 27, 2017)

When I mentioned that I wanted to use an er16 holder for my tailstock I assumed I could buy live or dead centers that would fit it.  After doing some web surfing I've realized I was wrong.  If there are any options there aren't very many of them. Mt2 taper it is.

My initial idea for locking the tailstock into place was to put a slot in the bottom of the tailstock that partially cut into the bushings that the rails will run on(exposing some of the rail).  Then making a block to fit that slot with two radii cut into it it to match the rails.  Then I would have a bolt going through the middle of the rails that when tightened would pull the block up against the rails and lock it in place.   I figured this would give it some support while using the tailstock. 

 I really like the leadscrew idea  you mentioned. It adds a precise way to take holes to depth, and it takes away some stuff that would need to be machined on the tailstock shaft.  I could also make a couple of different tailstock shafts if I  I wanted to and swap them out pretty easily.  I'm a little worried though that not having the tailstock locked onto the rails will add some give to the unit.  What are your thoughts?

I figured I'd mention my plans for machining the rail supports.  Before I designed this I cut two rails so I could test how true they ran.  One had just under .0002" total runout and the other was at .0001".  Much better then I expected to be honest with you.  Now for the rail supports... I figured I would set them up and bore them both at the same time.  This should help remove any setup variations, and keep the two blocks as true as possible.

I haven't had time to draw up the double bed option yet which is why I didn't mention it here.  Once I do I can weight each option better.  Thanks for the help, I'm glad I didn't jump right in and build it.

]





Wizard69 said:


> At work we have all sorts of industrial slides in use for everything from specialized grinder to general automation.   My  reluctance with round bar slides is the result of man of them being long for the bar size.   Such slides can work perfectly well over shorter distance.
> 
> The question then becomes is the distance you have with those bars too long for the diameter and the work loads you will have on them.   I suppose a good mechanical engineer could answer that question with great precision but that isn't me.   The only two issues I have are ringing or vibration in the rods and deflection under load.   Lets just say the possibility of problems makes me nervous but we need to temper that with the idea that this is a TAIG and thus you won't be putting 5 horsepower of energy into the work.   One other thing to consider the best of the dual rod slides I've worked with have been designed to a very high level of precision and are tight, that is almost zero play in the rod bearings.   That is a tough one to achieve without binding at one end or the other of the stroke.   The dovetail approach is probably easier to get working to a high degree of prices fit up.
> 
> ...


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## Wizard69 (Oct 1, 2017)

nautilus29 said:


> When I mentioned that I wanted to use an er16 holder for my tailstock I assumed I could buy live or dead centers that would fit it.  After doing some web surfing I've realized I was wrong.  If there are any options there aren't very many of them. Mt2 taper it is.


ER for a tailstock is a little odd however making a live and dead center isn't a big deal in my mind.   Where you really loose is being able to buy pre-made MT2 spindle tooling which is widespread and comparatively cheap.   For your design you would need a wider tailstock block but that is no big deal and only adds a few inches to your overall length.

In any event it is up to you. 


> My initial idea for locking the tailstock into place was to put a slot in the bottom of the tailstock that partially cut into the bushings that the rails will run on(exposing some of the rail).  Then making a block to fit that slot with two radii cut into it it to match the rails.  Then I would have a bolt going through the middle of the rails that when tightened would pull the block up against the rails and lock it in place.   I figured this would give it some support while using the tailstock.
> 
> I really like the leadscrew idea  you mentioned. It adds a precise way to take holes to depth, and it takes away some stuff that would need to be machined on the tailstock shaft.  I could also make a couple of different tailstock shafts if I  I wanted to and swap them out pretty easily.  I'm a little worried though that not having the tailstock locked onto the rails will add some give to the unit.  What are your thoughts?


Tailstock locks have been around as long modern lathes you will most certainly want a lock solution.   You could try cotters as might be used on something like a Quorn grinder.


> I figured I'd mention my plans for machining the rail supports.  Before I designed this I cut two rails so I could test how true they ran.  One had just under .0002" total runout and the other was at .0001".  Much better then I expected to be honest with you.  Now for the rail supports... I figured I would set them up and bore them both at the same time.  This should help remove any setup variations, and keep the two blocks as true as possible.
> 
> I haven't had time to draw up the double bed option yet which is why I didn't mention it here.  Once I do I can weight each option better.  Thanks for the help, I'm glad I didn't jump right in and build it.
> 
> ]



Even if you jumped in this is a design that would be fairly easy to upgrade to other configurations.   I still see a longer bed as the overall best solution.


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## dennisa49 (Oct 2, 2017)

Hello Nautilius, I am coming in late here.
May it be worth considering hollow bar rather than solid to support the tail stock.
In general it handles toque and deflection better than solid.
Good luck with your project, regards Dennis


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## nautilus29 (Dec 25, 2017)

I have to say my wife's the best!  She pooled my family together and gave me the Taig lathe I wanted for Christmas!  

I've been working on the tailstock mod for a couple of months now.  She probably got so sick of listening to me talk about wanting this lathe that she figured she'd shut me up lol.

Here are some pictures of the lathe, and where I'm at on the tailstock.  I went to a local granite countertop installer and they ended up giving me a 12" x 24" x 1.25" thick piece of granite for free.  I haven't added the mounting holes to it, but the tailstock itself is close to being finished. I found a #1mt to #3mt extension on eBay that had a ground finish on the O.D. so I modified it to turn it into my tailstock ram.  I lapped all of the components together so there is no play in the bores and shafts.


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## nautilus29 (Dec 28, 2017)

I ended up having to rework my lathe riser block.  The blueprints I found online for the bolt hole pattern must be outdated as the holes in the mounting plate of the Taig were 1\16th wider then the prints said they should be.  I was able to reverse the pattern on my riser block and put the holes in the right location.

Started drilling the holes in the granite.  So far it has gone pretty smoothly, but we will see if my diamond bit wears out before I'm finished.  Three holes done seven to go.  I make a little pond with silly putty and water which helps keep the tool lubricated, and keeps dust from getting all over my house.


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## nautilus29 (Dec 30, 2017)

I decided to take some time to make a quick change tool post.  Since I don't have any keyway cutters I made a round shaft style and put reamed holes in the base every 22.5 degree to give myself some consistency if I need to put the tool at an angle.  I made the post out of 4140 pre hardened stock, and the tool holders out of mild steel.  So far I only have 1 holder finished, but I'm planning on making 6.  1 for a cutoff, 2 for different diameter boring bars, and 3 for different o.d. cutters.  

Here are some pictures... right now the height is a temporary fix as I didn't have time to make a threaded washer.


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## nautilus29 (Jan 10, 2018)

I'm still tweaking in the tailstock, but here is the completed setup.  I'm not sure that this will be the final design of the tailstock until I do some more testing on the current design.

I added a hinge to the motor mount that way I can change speeds quicker without hurting the belt.  I ended up putting a washer between the hinge joint while setting the belt tension that way it would tighten just a touch more once finished.  The weight of the motor is enough to keep the hinge down.

The power feed option came in the mail, so I decided to set that up.  It ended up being a little more work then I expected.  I had to machine the original rack slot off of the lathe bed to make room for the lead screw.  Then a couple of my nuts were too high, and getting in the way.    I had to remove the washers to give myself the clearance I needed.

I can't wait to start making some motors on this.  I ended up buying the milling attachment for it.  Not sure how much I'll use it, but for $67 dollars I figured if I use it once it will be worth the money.


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