Production drilling in the lathe.

Edited By Dennis R on 27/10/2016 22:59:54

Rotagrip is selling their lever operated tailstock drill on Ebay right now they are £67.50 delivered. I just ordered one, for some reason it is cheaper on Ebay than buying direct (reason being that the item is cheaper on Rotagrip site but incurs the minimum P&P of £9,60!

Andrew.

P.S. Price has been reduced from £90 odd pounds in the last week or so.

That device looks pretty neat Andrew, i'll have to give this ago one day as I have an awful lot of drilling to do at times, a good find and adaptable to any lathe of course.

You can look at a bigger close up than this on their site,

(or here;http://www.rotagriponline.com/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/Sensitive_tailst_54c3aea75125e.jpg) 

but the chuck looks like its either a Jacobs lookalike or the real deal, either way the screw thread may match up for others. could even be adapted to tapping reasonable sized holes with a different chuck if youve got a slow enough speed for it.

I ain't all that rich but even if I can't afford it, certainly provides plenty of inspiration for a project, I didn't think of making it a morse taper tooling but it's a decent idea and doesn't risk damage to your tail end. (I've got a few small threaded chucks and a blank end, soft faced number 3 taper that I haven't used on anything.)

All you'd need to do first is clock your taper in the four jaw, grab it by the soft arbour(ally/brass shims if youre fussy over finish) and get it either 0.01 or bang on if you like, then proceed to drill,tap or turn the end to receive a male/female thread.only other stymy might be to make sure the chuck bar is a close fit into the steel tube assy.

Benefit of making your own is you can make it to suit whatever taper you like so long as you can get hold of a £5-6 blank end arbour, getting a miniature decent chuck might be the only stumbling block but i'll keep an eye out for the sake of others who might wanna have a go.

Michael Walters

Edited By Michael Walters on 30/11/2016 17:27:47

Edited By Michael Walters on 30/11/2016 17:31:38

Michael

I have one of those little tailstock drillholders.Not used all that often but very useful when using very small drills as it is possible to "feel the drill" in - something not possible when winding in with the tailstock handle.

Found mine in a S/H tool shop if I remember correctly

Norman