To centre your tool-post chuck, keep a 6" piece of tool steel round with a centre-drilled hole at either end. Put a centre in the lathe chuck, a centre in the tool-post chuck and your alignment bar between the two. Use your DTI to run along the length of the bar and adjust as necessary. To set the chuck in the taper, do it off the machine: Wind the jaws right back into the body. CLEAN the male and female of the tapers, the put the chuck-face-down onto a piece of hardwood on the floor and strike the back-end tang of the taper using a heavy soft mallet. Make sure those tapers are CLEAN!

Thanks, You do a good job explaining without needless/endless footage. I have a 9x20 Chinese Lathe and have made a full length taper turning attachment for it. It's surprising what you can do with these little lathes. Enjoyed the film. RichD

Cool to see it in action and how versatile it is. 20 bucks seems almost like a steal.

Nice #2 tool holder,I have been wondering about these and now I see I can possibly use on in my small shop.

You should also shop around for m/t shank drills as well and only use old mister tailstock for centerdrills most of the time. You will also be putting lots of stress on the little crappy die cast crank feed gear cluster in your apron too so watch out for that to break sooner or later.

i recently picked up a very nice craftsman 6 inch lathe like yours,i need to get some tooling and learn how to use it, videos like yours are going to be a big help. i have a video posted on my lathe,if you get a chance take a look.

Good tool and good video!

I’m sure enjoying watching you work with the same Lathe I have. When you switched to the 3/4 Hp Motor, was it the same 1750 RPM as the original? It seems like you get a faster speed than mine. You have a lot of Great ideas I’m going to implement on mine. Very nice Work. 👍

that is a nice tool. when watching your last video i was hoping to see this tool in action. did you get much movement in the compound while using it?

Great demonstration RP. What size is your QCTP?

Did you think of using a powered longtitudinal feed for the carriage? I'd like to see that demonstrated!

Very cool. As I was watching the taper/chuck turn a bit with those larger drills, I though it might work to grind a flat on a portion of the taper and install a set screw into the top side of the holder body to keep the taper from turning. I was also thinking that with those larger drills the pressure on the rack & pinion carriage--pretty light-weight on your small lathe--you could break a gear/rack tooth. I wonder if the tailstock could be employed to apply pressure to the back side of the taper holder using some kind of spring-loaded plunger similar in principal to ones used for tap/die followers--on a larger scale, of course, and with a stronger spring and longer travel. With some pressure thus applied, it could take some of the strain off the carriage rack & pinion. Could be an interesting lathe project, too. Thanks for the video.

the larger bits are slipping along with the chuck in the taper. Seems like you are putting to much load for a #2 taper.

Nice job on the review.

$20 bucks ??? Thanks for sharing. Nice review.