What is your technique for seting lathe compound at a precise angle?

You start with a piece with that known taper mounted in the lathe and centered. Then you mount a dial test indicator in the toolpost and crank the compound rest back and forth watching the needle (indicating the taper, obviously). When the needle doesn't move, you have matched the taper.

GWE

Fairly precise? With the engraved numbers on the cross slide. Preciser? With a cylindrical round in the chuck, a dial indicator on the compound and feeding a known distance with the compound. The rest is math.

Nick

That will work. Engraving on compound feed crank wheel gives me the hypotenuse, indicator gives me one of the legs and then right angle trig.

That is the solution I was looking for.

Thanks Nick,

Wes

I have used that technique before. Nick answered what I was really looking for which was setting up for a taper where I don't have a sample to work from.

Thanks,

Wes

How precise? There should be a protractor marked on the compound, easily settable to 1/2 deg

A guy I used to work with had a sine bar that had a base which was mounted between centers. The actual sine bar was hinged. I think he held the gage blocks and all together with rubber bands. I suppose he used a dead center under pressure to keep everything from moving. Randy

Thanks a lot!

Nick

You're welcome. I think the guy made this himself. I've never seen one before or after. Never in a tool catalog. Randy

RCM:

a way to filter out teh babble