Motor for tailstock.

Are there any companies that sell motors for fitting to a tailstock for drilling etc?

Something like a motor with speed control via a phase inverter, with travel stops etc.

Fairly easy to make, but it'd be worth seeing if there's a ready made option.

Seen plenty of mills/drills on the cross slide, never seen one on a tailstock though. It's primary function is for workholding and it can double up as a stationary drill

I meant to just move the tailstock barrel in and out rather than rotate!

my carpel tunnel syndrome makes turning the handle a pain!

A power tailstock!

(Never seen one, sorry)

Have a look at the various lever feed conversions which will make it easy to move the barrel in and out especially useful when peck drilling deep holes

There are also a few designs that link the carrage to the tailstock and drag it along the bed

What a cracking idea!

graham.

I would have thought that some of the Dividing Head stepper drives that some of the guys on here have developed would be most suitable for a power tailstock.

Hi Chris,
I would think that a DC motor (EG windscreen wiper) would be better than a stepper as it would be an advantage to provide torque limiting as well as speed control to reduce the risk of breaking smaller drills. I cannot think of an easy way to do this with a stepper motor.

Les.

Heres one from 1942

Chris,

MEW no 110 has an article on the very subject.

Cheers

John

An electric drill provides (almost) everything you would need - speed control, reverse, etc.

You'd just need to wire up some limit switches.

The disadvantage of a lever is it would make a tuff job harder to do

There have been some bigger-drill-bit jobs when the standard screw drive has been a godsend for me because it gives you a good level of control and a high drill pressure at the same time

Horses for courses I suppose

Edited By Ady1 on 08/07/2014 21:46:16

An electric drill provides (almost) everything you would need - speed control, reverse, etc

Some of the battery powered drills have all these things plus an integral clutch so you could limit the drill bit pressure

Maybe a drill powered tailstock drive would be the most unobtrusive mod

A gearcog on the back of the tailstock, powered by a wormdrive and the electric drill can fit on one end

The inner part of the gearcog has a thread which fits the tailstock spindle thread to drive it in and out

You could make your own wormcog (instead of a gearcog) from a 12mm tap and an aluminum disc

Use a bit of 12mm threaded bar from B+Q as a wormdrive spindle

Edited By Ady1 on 08/07/2014 22:15:48

Good idea. 

The easiest way would be to just put a socket in the drill which fits onto the nut that holds the hand wheel on.

I'm thinking more for something automatic though, something that I can turn on and leave to drill and reverse!

Edited By Chris Denton on 08/07/2014 22:19:51

Power feed tailstocks etc, in my experience, is only good for processes that do not require pecking, like a roller box or a gundrill, those sorts of things.

You would also need a motor that stops quickly to avoid ejecting the chuck

Alternatively look at the postings here by John Stevenson - his design combines a lever feed with ertaining eth screw feed:

**LINK**

An advantage of a powered spindle in the rear tailstock is twofold - the speeds of head and tailstock add together, and as they contra-rotate it's more reliable for drilling long, straight holes as there is no 'preferred direction'*.

Neil

*Often seen in nature, when a plant grows or a simple creature swims in a helix - the overall direction of movement tends towards a straight line, whilst if they tried to go in a direct line they would probably veer off course. Presumably the same applies to arrows (but not bullets, where rotation is much faster and the effect is gyroscopic)