Metal Lathe Tail Stock Dial Stop - Versatile Bar Clamp Design Media

Published: 3 years ago

Need accurate depth readings from the Tail Stock on your metal lathe? This is a great bar clamp for your ram to allow you to easily get a dial reading when drilling holes, counterboring, or anything else that requires more accuracy than the hash marks on your tail stock provide.

The delay getting this video out was due to a serious computer crash when my fusion drive on my iMac split trying to upgrade to BigSur. I lost 2 weeks worth of data including about 10 hours of the video making this bar clamp. This video is a little different in that I spend half the time talking through the build from my Fusion 360 design. I still salvaged 2 hours of video from my camera for the other half so still some great shop footage of the build.

With a Tormach 1100MX on the way, I need to get more proficient with Fusion 360 and this was a great project to design in CAD and push my skills. Helped me make the design better and actually saved me time and material in the shop. I would highly recommend spending time learning CAD software even if you don't do CNC.

Making this bar clamp I used a Rotary Table on my JET JMD-18 Mill Drill for the outer shape, a Precision Matthews PM 1440TL Lathe to bore it and make the hardware, a Dividing Head on my Mill for radial slot in a shaft for the locking mechanism for the latch pin, and my Mill for all the other slots etc. Really a fun project with a lot of different set ups and learning points.

Great Machining Project for Hobby Machinist or a Professional Machinist.

I hope you enjoy the project, please feel free to leave comments and/or ask any questions.

Thanks for watching!
sovrn