I have an old Cincinnati 13x60 lathe the I would like to use for long tapers. There is a "taper attachment" or the remnants of one already in place but I cannot figure out how it works. It is the telescoping variety, with several other bells and whistles that don't make sense due to missing pieces. I would guess it is original equipment (ie...it doesn't look aftermarket).
Does anyone out there have any information/diagrams/etc. on a mid
1960's Cincinnati taper attachment.
I read several previous posts and found "Metal Lathe Attachments" and am hoping someone might be able to point me to a set of plans or something like it.
I don't have any info for you, Andy, about the taper attachment. I was just daydreaming about what a great time it was in the early and mid-60's in the metalworking field.....
I guess I better come down-to-earth and get back to work!
Well ... none specific to the Cinci, but since you say that it is a telescoping one, I'll describe how I understand them to work.
1) The "telescoping" part is a spline which couples the cross-feed handwheel to the cross-feed leadscrew. Let's assume that the nut remains in the cross-slide, but instead of the leadscrew being attached to the flange which mounts the handwheel as usual, it is instead attached to a sliding block straddling the taper bar, with a ball bearing, and provisions to make it self-align when the taper bar is shifted to a new angle.
2) The taper bar is attached to another bar which rides in a dovetail on the back of the carriage. It is pivoted in the middle of this, and locked at the two ends. There are typically two angle scales -- one in degrees, and one in inches/foot. (And they aren't always clearly marked as to which is which, so you have to learn to recognize which is which.
3) Under non-taper conditions, the taper bar and its support bar ride along with the carriage, so there is no effect upon the cross-slide position.
4) However, when you are cutting tapers, the tailstock end of the support bar (which is connected to a clamp via a rod) is fixed via a clamp near the tailstock. At this point, when the carriage is moved, the support bar slides in its dovetail, bearing the taper bar with it. Since the cross-slide leadscrew is mounted to a block riding on the taper bar, as it slides, it moves the cross-slide one way or the other.
Non-telescoping taper attachments are simpler to make, but more difficult to use. You have to uncouple the nut from the cross-slide (sometimes you have to remove it), and then clamp a tail projection of the cross-slide to the block which rides on the taper bar. You lose the ability to use the cross-feed leadscrew and handwheel, but otherwise the operation is similar. This is what I have, and mine has provisions for unclamping a special replacement cross-slide nut from the cross-slide prior to clamping the sliding block to the tail of the cross-slide.
If you think that the Clausing manual will give you enough of an idea -- here are the URLs for two styles of taper attachment for the Clausing which I use.
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IIRC, the first is the plain type, and the second is the telescoping type. Ok -- yes it is. And be warned that it is a PDF created from scanning a manual, so it is big -- about 1.5 MB for only four pages -- and a bit slow to display. But it should print well on a 600 DPI laser printer which does PostScript.
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