Hello All,
I'm a long-time lurker, but recently got gently coerced into posting for the collective amusement. For some years I have had a very nice S&B 1024, same as Darrens well documented machine, 'cept that although mine is tidyier, it does not have a Taper Turning Attachment, something I have hankered for for some time. I recently came by a TTA for a S&B Mdl A and everything except the main 'bracket' is identical to that for a 1024.
For some reason best known to himself, my father has recently decided that he has to have a mill of his own despite the fact that I have my Stanko at my parents' place as there is more room on their farm than in my domestic rat-hole. After a couple of abortive inspections of various machines he has ended up buying a pretty decent Thiel 158 (see my other recent post). There was not a lot of tooling with it; I have plenty with my Stanko, but it's MT4 which the Thiel isn't.....
So with the impending 'hey lad, can you knock up an adaptor for the Thiel so I can use your tooling' in the front of my mind, I thought I should sort the adaptor for TTA to fit my machine.
It's an easy job, just donkey work for the most part. The TTA needs to be further back and higher up as the 1024 is bigger than the Mdl A. I got hold of a slab of steel 15"x6"x2" of unknown spec., but it seems notably tougher than mild. The spacer-adaptor only needs to be just under 1.5" thick, but the billet came way cheaper than some nearer sized material from the stockholder so I accepted the volume of swarf to be generated - and making swarf is half the fun eh?
To save some weight and general hard work I decided to make the spacer as two pads, one for each mounting of the TTA, so I chopped two 4" chunks off the billet with the bandsaw and trued up a pair of opposite sides with a flycutter in the mill so I could hold them nicely. Then reduced the thickness to about 010 over size by bunging them in the 4-jaw on the little lathe at home. The mill or shaper would have been more obvious choices, but I can do turning at home anytime, whereas the mill and shaper are at the old folks place so it made sense that way. I cleaned both sides of each slab so it is a good reference, but the interrupted cut across the corners round the outer edge is pretty horrible and limits how aggressive you can be. It was about an hour a piece to turn down a 6x4 slab by half an inch with the Sabel. I ended up with the best part of a bin liner full of swarf, but time better spent than watching the moronoscope.
Back at the ranch a couple of days later: I clocked up the vice on the mill and put a slab up for more detailed work. I cleaned up the ends which were previously left as sawn and took a lick across the side as a reference face then put the groove in for the alignment key so it will be fixed relative to the TTA bracket. The blocks will be bolted to the TTA bracket then pinned. I can then take the adaptor off and steal the key to use it in its original task as the alignment to the machine bed.
