You’ll also get a little humor along the way – something that is usually missing from most machining-related videos. What stones do you have in your toolbox? Feel free to add your “two cents” by visiting the forum topic related to this video.

Enjoy!

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I wanted to document the process I went through to make my cover but I didn’t want to rehash what Barry had already written, so instead I made a video of the process. So now you can read the steps (Barry’s article) or watch the steps (my video). Both provide you with a cheap, easy and fool-proof method of protecting every major tool in your shop with a custom-fit cover.

Obviously you can adapt this method to virtually any size or shape of lathe, mill, etc – you’ll just need to buy an appropriately sized tarp to make your pattern.

Here’s the video.

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Machines are expensive. Dust is abrasive. Don’t believe me? Go get that old motorcycle helmet that Aunt Beunice gave you for your 16^th birthday after you bought that 125cc Honda Combat Wombat with your paper route money. Yeah, the snazzy lime green one. See all that dust on the face shield? Give it a good rub and telephone me to tell me it didn’t scratch it up.

You keep your calipers and micrometers in a toolbox right? Those baseball cards that Grampa gave you go into his footlocker right? You keep your money in a bank right? So what do you do with your machinery? If you are like ninety nine percent of amateur machinists you let your machinery sit out in the open, unprotected, cold and lonely.

Next time you are using foul language to describe to a friend how your machine wouldn’t hold the tolerance you wanted it to, look back at how you treated the poor machine. You oughta be ashamed. Why would you put the bench grinder where it would spit abrasive particles onto the lathe? You mean you did woodworking in the same room as your metal machines are stored? Don’t you know that wood chips will soak up all the oil on those precision surfaces and make them rub together? The precision of your machinery is based on the wear that occurs to the ways and other sliding surfaces. So when you are done hanging your head, when your lip stops quivering, I will help you pay your penance. Even you can seek forgiveness at the chapel of the recovering machine abuser.

The only way to fix up your Karma is to make covers for your machinery. Yeah, a lathe cozy. This sounds dumb until you think about it. Like “Don’t run with the scissors,” sounded dumb until you either thought about it or found out why people told you that. This is the same, you can learn the easy way through logic or you can poo poo the idea and pay when your machines will no longer do what they should. I finally got sick of waiting for February 30^th which is when my wife said she would finish my equipment covers and asked her to show me how to sew fabric. This she was perfectly willing to do. It was not that hard to learn. We measured the extreme length, width and height of my Atlas horizontal milling machine and she made a sort of toaster cover shaped thing that fit like snot because the mill was not a perfect cube. Scratching my head I thought up a better way. That is what this article is about.

I took a cheap blue tarp and threw it over the mill. Everywhere there was looseness in the tarp got a row of pins. Eventually the tarp fit it snugly. I cut away all the excess tarp and cut nice and even around the base. Voila! We had made a pattern. We took it into the sewing room and laid cotton duck (fabric) down on the floor and laid the “pattern” over it. Dang! The fabric was too narrow. No Problem, We sewed on an extra ten inches and now it was wide enough. We pinned the pattern to the material, traced around it with a Sharpie marker and cut it out. She showed me how to sew the seams  which was WAY easier than I thought. I had her sew (hem) a piece of clothesline around the base of the cover and it was done. Yay! It fit all the curves and odd surfaces of the mill. It literally was a custom made cover.

Next came the Atlas 7-inch shaper. I decided to document the process and do all of it by myself.  Here are photos of the goofy shape that needed a cover

It is an ungainly thing to try to cover.

Under the tarp it looked like an ostrich trying not to be seen.

See that big flap ‘o nonsense hanging off the front? That is the excess we are trying to get rid of. Gathering all the excess material together then pinning it to isolate extra fabric leads to rows of straight pins pinching off whatever you want to get rid of like this.

Once the excess is pinned you can carve away the extra fabric OUTSIDE the pins with scissors leaving you something better looking like this.

Be sure to write on it before you take it off so that the outside is obvious. Otherwise the seams will show and your buddies will laugh even harder at you. When you trim away the bottom of the cover level with the floor it suddenly looks like a machine cover.

Now the pins can come out and you have a pattern. Lay this on the fabric you have chosen. You can see how I had to add material to get the width problem mentioned above solved.

Trace around the pattern and cut out the fabric. Sew up the seams and sew in the cord around the bottom. You now have custom fit machine covers. In this last photo you can see the incognito shaper on the left before the cord is sewn in around the bottom and the incognito milling machine on the right with the cord sewn in. The cord gives the cover a finished appearance so don’t be an idiot and leave it out.

That’s it! If you have a question or you want to leave a comment please click the “Join the forum discussion on this post” link below to log into the forum topic tied to this post.

- Barry

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This was another project that caught my eye while surfing instructables.com, especially since I had just picked up some speakers at a second hand store to use as a mag-base for my dial indicator.

So if you have an hour to kill and some extra speakers laying around …

Just remember not to hang any tools that you don’t want picking up residual magnetism!

The original instructable can be found here, but I’ve included a PDF copy for those who don’t have an instructables.com account. This project was reposted with permission from the original author, klee27x. Thanks Klee!

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I don’t know why, but I’ll spend 20 minutes trying to figure out an alternative setup rather than spending 5 minutes removing my 3 jaw chuck.

Then one day at GEARS in Portland someone asked me why I just don’t turn a sacrificial center and use that in my 3 jaw. Great idea!

The principle behind a sacrificial center is simple. It’s a center that can be re-chucked and re-turned to ensure that it’s perfectly centered. Whenever you need to turn between centers you simply chuck the sacrificial center in your 3 jaw chuck, set your compound at 30° (60° included), and shave off a few thousandths to ensure that it’s turning concentric.

It’s simple to build, but since this site is geared toward absolute beginners I’ll include pictures and directions below. The next time you need to turn something between centers, you’ll think twice before removing that chuck!

The Process:

First, find a piece of scrap steel an inch or so in diameter. Turn a shank down to about a half inch in diameter and at least an inch long.

Part off the piece leaving 2 to 3 inches of length on the larger diameter. The longer you make this portion, the more sacrificial cuts you’ll get out of it before you need to make a new center. Flip and re-chuck the parted-off piece.

Set your compound at 30° (60° included) and cut the center to a point in several passes.

You’re done once your center has a nice point to it.

Whenever you need to turn something between centers, re-chuck your sacrificial center, set your compound at 30° (60° included), and remove a few thousandths to ensure that the center is perfectly concentric along the axis of rotation. That’s it!

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Then it occurred to me that I could use my compound to cut a Morse taper since it has plenty of travel. I needed about 4″ of travel to cut a number 3 Morse taper (also known as a MT3, MT#3, or a 3MT). Excited, I set to work.

Here is an image of all the dimensions of a Morse taper (click the image to go to the Wikipedia article on Morse tapers). But you don’t have to calculate a single dimension if you follow my process for creating a Morse taper – it is very simple.

I set things up using a MT3 drill chuck arbor positioned between centers (the center in the 3-jaw chuck is a sacrificial center that I re-cut at 60° to ensure that it was perfectly centered). I didn’t have an extra arbor sitting around, so I removed the arbor from my lathe’s drill chuck and used that.

Using a dial indicator (attached to the compound with a mag base) I adjusted my compound to about 1.5° and began sweeping the indicator from one end to the other, making adjustments as needed until the indicator read zero across the entire length of the taper.

The Picture below is my attempt at a double-exposure to illustrate the process of sweeping back and fourth along the taper.

Make sure that the point of you dial indicator is on the centerline of the part, if it’s high or low you’re taper won’t come out right! Frank Ford built a special dial indicator holder that helps ensure that his indicator is reading exactly from the centerline of a taper. Franks special indicator holder can be found here. If you plan on making a lot of tapers, Franks tool would definately speed up the process and help make it more precise.

Here’s what 1° 26′ 16″ (one degree 26 minutes and 16 seconds) looks like on my compound – pretty precise … right? Which is exactly why it would be impossible to set up this angle using only the graduations on the compound – they’re not nearly precise enough.

Once you’re satisfied that your compound is set at the correct angle you’re ready to start cutting your taper. It’s a good idea to have a way to check the size of your taper occasionally. I used a Morse taper sleeve (4/3) for this purpose. Keep test fitting until the taper fits into the sleeve to the right depth. Be sure it fits far enough into the sleeve so that it can be knocked out with a drift, but not so far in that it bottoms out.

Here’s an image to illustrate how to use a sleeve to check your taper for proper fit. The taper on the top is still too large and doesn’t penetrate the sleeve far enough to be knocked out with a drift. The taper on the bottom has enough of the taper exposed to be knocked out by using a drift in the slot.

Here’s what I mean by using a drift to separate a taper from a sleeve. Get my drift? …

Once you’re satisfied with the size of the taper and the depth of the fit, you can fine tune the angle using layout die (or a Sharpie) and emery cloth. To test the fit draw a line along the taper and slide the sleeve over the taper giving it a few full rotations. The ink will be removed wherever the two tapers make contact.

Here you can see that my taper rubs in the middle more than at the ends, but it’s making contact along about 2 inches of the taper. With a little fine tuning (polishing with fine grit emery cloth reinforced with a flat backing) I should be able to improve the level of contact even further.

You’ll notice that my taper doesn’t have a tang. This is because my tailstock doesn’t have a slot in it so tangs are useless for my lathe – they just get in the way. Feel free to put a tang on your taper if you like.

However, if you decide to forgo the tang, be sure to turn down the first 0.300 so that you’ll have a protective “button” (for lack of a better term) at the end of the taper. This button is intended to absorb any abuse the arbor might experience over it’s lifetime (from being dropped or deformed by a drift). If the taper were to extend all the way to the end, any damage would cause the taper to not seat properly in the tailstock. Here is a picture of a manufactured live center with a black (hardened) protective button on the end.

I decided to cut several blank tapers while I had the angle set up. I’d advise you do the same. You can always think of uses for the tapers later! The long one on the left will be used to make a die holder. The third one from the left will probably become a slitting saw arbor. And the 3 on the right became the center drill holders shown at the very beginning of this article.

This was my first time cutting my own Morse taper, so If I missed anything please leave a comment. I’m sure there are several other methods of accurately cutting a Morse taper, so if you have one, please share your experience!

Update: There have been several comments on this project posted on the Machinist Workshop Forum. Feel free to visit the forum for more information and insight from others.

Update #2: Here’s a picture of the completed Steve Bedair style Die Holder.

It’s actually pretty similar in design to one that you can buy from LittleMachineShop.com. However, the LMS die holder fits smaller dies (13/16 and 1 inch). I made mine so that one end can hold a 1″ die and the other end can hold a 1.5″ die.

Also, the shaft is slightly longer than the sleeve, so you can pop the dies out easily when the set screws are loosened. Here’s a pic of the 1.5″ die being pushed out.

I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at CAD and drawing up a set of plans for the die holder with the dimensions I used. I haven’t seen plans for one anywhere else. If anyone is interested please leave a comment. If there is enough interest I’ll draw them up.

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A friend of mine has the misfortune of having too many end mills. Hundreds of them. I wish I had his problem. For him, the  issue with having hundreds of end mills is that he can never seem to find one with the right diameter, number of flutes, etc. when he needs it.

His previous attempt at organization involved sorting the end mills by diameter into several tupperware containers and coffee cans. Finding the right diameter was simple enough, but then he had to sort through the container to find one that had the right number of flutes, or a slight radius, etc.

Oddly, he had a set of storage bins on his workbench that sat virtually empty. He had the bins, but like so many of us, he didn’t have the motivation to organize the end mills into the bins. So I volunteered to help.

He wanted the end mills organized by used or new, diameter, number of flutes, and type (Ball, Hog, ect.). At first I started hand-writing labels for each of the bins, but I quickly realized that a printed label would make the project look much cleaner, and be easier to read from a short distance. Since the bins didn’t come with any labels, I made some up on my computer, cut them out, and stuck them to the bins using 2″ wide clear packing tape. Here’s what the labels look like:

Below you’ll find an Excel file with the labels I used. Simply change the content of the labels to suite your own storage needs. You could also take this idea one step further and buy your own self-sticking labels from an office supply store (which would make things even easier). Avery makes good labels if you decide to go this route, and Word and Word Perfect both have pre-formatted layouts that fit Avery labels.

If you decide to alter my attached Excel document there’s a few tips you need to know: If you want Excel to display a fractional size such as 3/4 you have to type an apostrophe in front of the fraction (i.e. ‘3/4) to prevent Excel from converting the fraction (3/4) into a date (4-Mar). Also, if Excel changes your 0.500 to 0.5, format the cell so that it shows 3 decimal places. If you run into any snags post a comment.

Have fun organizing!

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