Taig lathe

[mahlon]

David, about a year ago, I had visited with you on the forum about the Taig lathe. I purchased one then, and finally got the courage to set it up a week ago. I bought all the collets that they had, but it seems every thing I want to turn, falls in between collet sizes. Also, there were no wrenches to tighten the collets, is hand tight enough? The sad thing is, I went to a garage sale several weeks ago. The guy had a watch makers desk he had built full of stuff. I did not care for his desk, but I purchased the contents for $100.00.
I got 15 or 20 different pairs of pliers,tweezers,a deagnatizer, and lots of other goodies. In the bottom drawer I found a set of 50 coletts and a peerless flip over tool rest. Can you tell me is there any kind of adapter that can be used to adapt the for use on the Taig?

[david pierce]

Mahlon,
When I purchased my TAIG I ordered it with the ER-16 headstock. Mine uses ER-16 collets and I purchased the set from CTC tooling. I am not familar with the standard collets that are to be used in the standard TAIG headstock. The ER collets will grip all sizes of shaft diameters over the entire range of the collet set and I do not know if the standard collets will do this. The good news is the ER-16 headstock can be purchased separately and does not cost a whole lot of money. My entire collet set cost me about $30.00 and they are extremely accurate over their entire size range. The PEERLESS collets are hard to come by and if it were me I would hang on to them to use on a PEERLESS lathe. I am not aware of a WW spindle for the TAIG but they may offer one so check with TAIG and see. The nice thing in your case is if you get the ER-16 headstock and ER-16 collets, you can use the TAIG 3 and 4 jaw chucks as well as the collets by swapping the headstocks back and forth. I did not get the standard TAIG headstock because I have other lathes. If I only had the TAIG I would have gotten both.
david

[mahlon]

Thanks David. I have the standard headstock, but I bought the er16 adapter and the set of er16 collets. The smallest is 1/16. Are you saying that it will close to say 1/32?. I was not sure how tight to tighten the collet retainer. I didn’t want to damage the collets

[david pierce]

Mahlon,
I think you are missing a collet from your set. My set has a 1/32 collet.
david

[mahlon]

David, I went back to the Taig web site that I purchased my lathe from. The er16 set that I got did not include the 1/32. In the standard set there is one collet that I am not sure what it is for. The front of the collet has a hole that is approx.
5/16′, but the hole in the back looks to be maybe 1/32′. Any idea what it is for?

[david pierce]

Mahlon,
I don’t know why that 5/16 collet is configured that way. It may be for a special application. ER-16 collets are designed to collapse .039″.
david

[gerene]

Taig also sells a WW headstock with drawbar. You can use normal WW collets. Taig does not sell those, I bought mine from Sherline. The WW headstock has the same external thread as the standard headstock, so you can use all the standard accessories as well. Only the bore of the spindle is smaller than the bore in the standard headstock. Attached is a picture of mine with a .3mm collet.

Jan

[mahlon]

Thanks Gerene, I will check in to that. I don’t intend to work on watches, but there are a lot of the ww collets that I think I will be able to use.

[david pierce]

Jan,
Does Sherline sell a component for the Taig? I was not clear when I read your last blog. Ignore the previous sentences, I think I figured out what you said. Taig sells the WW headstock and Sherline sells the collets. That is a nice setup you have.
Got it,
david

[gerene]

Indeed David, the headstock is Taig and the collets are Sherline (or any other WW-collet).

Jan

[david pierce]

Jan,
With the large induction motor, seamless drive belt, cross slide, affordable vertical milling attachment, strong bed, how can anything beat that setup.
david

[mahlon]

Genere, I just talked to Taig. They said that they used to make a ww headstalk, but quick because they were not getting enough sales. I talked to sherline and they tell me that the ww adapted they sell has too large of drawbar for the standard Taig headstock

[gerene]

Sorry to hear that they do not make a WW-headstock anymore. If you are really interrested, you could try their dealers to find out if they still have one left in stock.
I don’t know the size of the Sherline adapter set, which I believe consists of a collet adapter and a drawbar, and if adapting to Taig would be possible.
As you might know, there is a forum “Taig Owners Club” where resellers are also active. They might have some ideas for you.

Jan

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