On May 30, 7:06*am, Terry wrote:
...
Just curiosity: *can anyone suggest a different way to hold the
tailstock end without buying extra tooling?
--
Best -- Terry

The old way was to pound a piece of wood into the end of the pipe.
Bend over the corners of a square of sheetmetal and hammer it into the
wood, then mark and punch the center in the metal. Next turn the pipe
round and smooth enough to run in a steady rest, and drill a large 60
degree center hole in the sheet metal and wood. Or pound in a steel
insert.

The wood plug doesn't interfere with squaring up the end of the pipe
or beveling it to run true on the pipe center.

This was the way to turn one or a few cored castings without a fixture
such as you made.

My metal project has been repairing the corrugations in crumpled
roofing, using pipe for the anvil and a rubber hammer.

jsw