Funny, that, that's exactly how I've done it, too.

I was turning tapers, about 380mm long, tapering from 15 to 3.8mm. I
started with some 5/8"round bar and cut the taper 80mm at a time, working
from the small end to the large. I centre drilled the small end for the
rotating centre, not really for support, but to keep it from whipping about.
Worked a treat.

Cheers

John


Wooding wrote:
|| David Billington wrote:
||| I have been asked if I can make some items that use a steel rod
||| tapering from 1/4" down to 3/32" over about 7". All I can think of
||| at the moment is to try and turn it but using a special tailstock
||| centre to allow it to be placed in tension and offset the tailstock
||| to set the taper as normal. The taper doesn't have to be accurate,
||| it could be slightly barreled, but does need to be smooth. Any body
||| have any better ideas.
|||
||
|| I had to make a small triblet for the jewellery I make. It consists
|| of a silver-steel rod that tapers from 9mm to 1.8mm over a distance
|| of about 150mm. I turned it on my lathe using nothing but the
|| standard equipment - I don't have a taper attachment and the top
|| slide travel is only 70mm.
||
|| I machined the taper in stages, so the the cutting tool was never
|| more than 30mm from the chuck.
|| I centre drilled the end, set the topslide over to the the required
|| angle, chucked the rod so that only 30mm protruded supported it with
|| a live centre in the tailstock, then started to cut the taper until
|| it got too close to the live centre. At this point I continued the
|| cut by leaving a knob on the end where the centre supported the rod.
|| It got tricky at this point 'cos I wanted to get the end of the
|| taper as small as 1.8mm, but, by using a sharp tool that could cut
|| in both directions, this was finally done. The rod was then extended
|| a further 30mm and, with suitable light cuts, the taper cutting was
|| continued until it met the previous one. The process was repeated
|| until there was no more to cut, then the knob was removed and the
|| surface improved with emery cloth.
||
|| It made a very nice triblet that gets a lot of use - in fact I made
|| two, one for a friend.
||
||
|| --
||
|| Regards, Gary Wooding
|| (To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address)