Building The Steven's Favorite

[TomG]

Today I was working on a method of holding the gun drill in my lathe. Since the drill is actually longer than the lathe I decided that rather than hold the drill with the 3/4" shank, I would hold it in the middle with the boring bar holder. This required a special adapter (of course) to hold the funky shaped drill shank without crushing it. The adapter consists of a 3/4" piece of round with a 3/16" groove in it that has a radius in the bottom to match the drill shank. A 3/16" rectangular bar with a 120º included angle goes in the slot to clamp on the drill and a couple of collars with cap screws provides the clamping force. With this set-up I should be able to grip the drill close to the end of the barrel so I won't need to make a steady brace to support the center, although some sort of support will still be needed on the end of the drill where the coolant hoses attach.

Tom