My lathe’s tailstock has a lot of backlash (.006), a short throw (1.500), and sixty graduations (a number that has never made any sense to me). I’ve always found it difficult to drill to accurate depths.

For example, 0.875 divided by .060 equals how many rotations of the tailstock handle? It’s ridiculous to me that I need to do math (even simple math) just to drill a hole to a depth of 0.875. If my tailstock had 100 graduations things would be a lot easier … but it doesn’t. It has 60.

60? Really?

Now, about the backlash. I know what you’re thinking. Who cares about backlash in a tailstock? Apparently I do. My psychiatrist and I are working on that …

And yes I realize that 99.9% of the time the depth of a hole isn’t a critical dimension – but I’d still wanted more control and accuracy out of my tailstock.

At least, that was the case. But no longer! With the exception of the short throw all the other issues with my tailstock were resolved with one simple stop that you can easily make in an evening.

This project is very simple. The only thing that I can see tripping someone up is remembering to create thread relief for the cap screw. When you drill and tap for the 1/4-20 cap screw, you’ll want to also drill a .250 thread relief  to the halfway point (where the slitting saw will eventually cut) so that the dial stop is only threaded on one of the two sides. If you thread both sides the two sides won’t draw together when you tighten the cap screw.

I didn’t draw up plans because of the simplicity of the project and because each person will need to scale the project up or down to fit the size of their lathe. I did, however, make a build video. Let me know what you think!

If you make your own please post pictures on the forum.

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Here’s a set of plans for a handy Die Holder that fits any lathe with a #3 Morse Taper tailstock.

The aluminum body of the die holder holds the die perpendicular to the axis of the spindle rotation and rotates freely around a steel shaft firmly inserted into the tailstock. This ensures that your part is threaded perfectly.

Here’s a picture of the Die Holder with a 1.5″ die inserted:

Here’s a picture of the Die Holder flipped 180 degrees with a 1″ die inserted:

I got the idea from Steve Bedair’s Die Holder and I adapted it to look similar to a smaller die holder sold here by LittleMachineShop.com.

I created the plans myself using Autodesk Inventor. It was my first attempt using the software, and my first time drawing up plans for the machine trade – so if there are any errors please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix them.

Here are the plans (in PDF format):

  MT3_Die_Holder_-_1.0_to_1.5_Inch.pdf (999.4 KiB, 373 hits)
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Mike White, an instructor at the Franklin Technology Center in Joplin Missouri, shared a set of student plans for a machinists ball peen hammer. While his students typically make the hammer out of metal, Mike decided to make his out of something a bit more striking …

Mike also shared a set of plans for a nifty machinists scribe that nests inside it’s own handle when not in use.

Thanks for sharing your plans with us Mike!

If you’re an instructor like Mike and you’d like to share your student plans with the site, please feel free to submit them using the “Submit Your Plans” tab at the top of the page. I’ll provide a link (and thus free publicity) back to your school or website. Every submission helps this site grow. Thank you for your support!

  Machinist_Hammer_From_Mike_at_Franklin_Tech.jpg (438.3 KiB, 168 hits)
NOTE: You need to be a registered member (and logged in) to download this file. You can register or log in using the "Log In" section located in the upper left corner of the site (don't worry, it's free to register and your email address will be kept private). Please note, subscribing to the RSS feed is not the same as registering. Also, registering for the site will grant you forum access, allowing you to log into the forum using the same username and password you used to register for the site.

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