Morse taper tang

[Bony]

If you do much machining you will have several tools with Morse tapers, either for use in a milling machine (without a tang so a draw bar can screw into the end of the taper to hold it in place), or for use in a lathe, to usually be held in the tailstock, (in which case it will have a tang).


MT3 without a tang


MT3 with a homemade tang added. The purpose of the tang is to prevent the taper from turning in a lathe tailstock, but this taper cannot be held securely enough for use in a mill.


So you will need the "tang" part too screw into the thread of the tang-less taper.


And it's a very simple matter to make two like this whilst you have the work set up on your mill, then simply cut them in half. This idea will work for any size Morse taper, simply use a taper with a manufactured tang to get the dimensions.

You will then have the best of both worlds, a Morse taper tool to use in both a lathe and mill. Make the male thread size, pitch and length to suit your tooling and unscrew the tang whenever necessary.

Hope you also benefit from this idea.

Bony

[Frank S]

I have always felt that the tang was there only to assist in the removal of the taper from a drill press. I've never owned a lathe that had the milled tang cavity receptacle, and only 1 that even had the taper key slot to remove the tool. I can't say about all lathes large or small but those were the way all of mine have been that used the MT in the tail stock.
The 8°19' or 1.75" in 12" taper is designed to be self locking if there is slippage them either the taper is incorrect or there is debris or damage to 1 or the other componant.

I have owned a mill that used the tangless MT, I believe that Brown & Sharp was the one who came up with that design but I could be wrong. the purpose of the draw bar is to keep the tool from loosening or falling out due to the side loading of a milling operation
in drill presses the tang is required for removing the tool.
I like the tang adapter you made because it will allow the use of tangless tooling in a drill press since it becomes almost impossible to remove them from the machine without one.
I would suggest that you harden your adapters and always use antisieze on the threads if you haven't already

[Bony]

Thanks for your comments Frank.

The only lathe I've owned that hasn't had a tang receiver at the end of the tailstock is what I now find a small lathe, the extremely versatile Myford Super Seven. I've owned it since new, now over 40 years ago, it's a very nice lathe and my only gripe is that the MT2 of the tailstock chuck slips a little when doing very hard work, even when tapped solidly in place to lock the tapers. I really wish it would lock into a tang receiver.

The headstock on my largest lathe is 5MT, and the tailstock MT3, into which the tang on the end locks into a slotted retainer to prevent any slippage on the taper. I use ER30 and ER40 collet holders to hold annular cutters in the tailstock for drilling holes up to 50mm in diameter so the taper has to lock VERY firmly into the tailstock. This is when a tang is REALLY needed. My drill press uses MT4 and tooling for that also needs a tang on the end, and not just for removal.

My mill takes NT30 tooling and I occasionally use an MT3 adapter which takes the tang to hold things such a boring head.

I haven't had any problems with tapers binding or my screw in tangs needing to be hardened because to release the taper from the tailstock you simply need only wind the tailstock back and the MT3 tooling pops out. If the tapers have gripped firmly the handle may need to be wound back using some force, but it always releases without difficulty.

Bony

[Rorschach]

My Super 7 also has a plain tailstock, it is very annoying when the taper slips but given the fairly lightweight build of the tailstock and it's cam-clamp I think it's probably better for the taper to slip when loads get too high.

[DIYer]

Thanks Bony! We've added your Morse Taper Tang to our Machining category,
as well as to your builder page: Bony's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Morse Taper Tang by Bony

tags: taper