Making a cup chuck for a local bag pipe business
Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Easy
Process:
I got a call from a local bag pipe shop wanting me to finish a project he had started a year ago. He had bought a chunk of aluminum and started turning it but his lathe wasn't suited to finish the job so he asked me to finish it for him.
He wanted me to cut a taper into the piece of aluminum, called a "cup chuck" which I didn't even know existed. Essentially the way it works, is that you take a piece of round wood, jam it into the tapered cup chuck with the tail stock which then self-centers and locks the piece so it can be turned on the wood lathe to make parts for a bag pipe.
After I had mounted the piece of aluminum in the chuck, I faced the end and turned the outside diameter to make it concentric to my lathe. Then I had to counter-sink the 4 mounting holes in the face plate so that I could bolt the chunk of aluminum to it and properly re-chuck it in my lathe.
Then started the arduous and time-consuming task of boring the internal taper. The cup chuck was 4.400" long with a diameter of 2.500". However, because the small end of the taper was only 0.500" I had to use a fairly small boring bar. This led to quite a bit of flex in the tool necessitating small shallow cuts.
After everything was said and done, and about 7hrs later, I had made a tool which I didn't even know existed the day before. Pretty cool...
Videos:
Pictures:
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| Facing and turning the chunk of aluminum |
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| Counter-sinking the face plate |
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| Drilling out the center of the cup chuck |
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| Turning it to size |
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| Smoking up the shop |
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| Getting ready to bore |
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| Starting to form a taper |
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| Another view |
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| All done |
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| Another view |
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| Yet another view |
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| And another one |
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| And the last one |
Tools:
Lathe & accessories
Materials:
5" of 3" diameter aluminum
Time:
7 hrs
Conclusion:
I just heard from the owner of the bag pipe shop that there's a slight wobble in the cup chuck so I might have to do some more fine tuning...
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