I needed to be able to bore some holes using the lathe as a mill / drill press for a number of upcoming projects. My 10×18 lathe has a MT4 spindle taper. MT4 is a bit of an odd ball taper for a lathe. It’s not quite big enough to accommodate the 5C taper or the R8 taper – both of which plentiful amounts of inexpensive new and used tooling is available. The X2 mini mill I have uses the MT3 taper – so naturally it made a lot of sense then to make up an adapter to go from MT4 to MT3, as well as a drawbar and associated hardware to go along with it.
Here is a video of the project:
The threaded drawbar itself was made out of some mystery metal in the shop. It was interesting stuff with a really hard outer layer that through hot chips all over my arm when I was turning it. It almost made me want a lathe with a carriage wheel on the right side of the lathe. The drawbar was turned between centres to within .001″ over 10″ – something I was happy with. It highlighted my need for a travel steady – I’ll have to add that to the project this.
The MT4 – MT3 bushing / adapter was made out of an inexpensive MT4 – MT3 adapter that would be commonly used in a drill press. I cut the tang off with an angle grinder and cleaned it up on the belt sander. I was thinking about making it up entirely, but I wanted a hardened bushing.
Here is the drawing for the project:
The video marks my tenth video that I’ve done, and it also incorporates some significant changes in how I put them together. Going forward I hope to continue to improve the quality as I learn.
The titanium pencil project is also still very much a going concern – I hope start some tear downs over the next few weeks to start the project off. Many of the projects I’ve been working on in the shop are laying groundwork for the build. So in short – stay tuned!
thecogwheel 