Gingery Lathe - Tailstock Machining

To machine the tailstock, I set it up in my CNC using a vise.  I had to use a regular 3/4" straight router bit because I did not have enough Z axis travel to get anything longer to work.  I had to be careful because the part stood higher than the bottom of the Z axis.  I had just enough clearance to reach the far side of the part to cut it.  I was pretty happy with the results.

Here I am boring out the tailstock.  I didn't attach the tailstock to the carriage as described in the book.  Instead, I just used the carriage to push the tailstock along the ways and when I was at the end of the cut, I pulled the carriage and tailstock back by hand.  It worked fine.

After the tailstock was machined, I needed to make the temporary tailstock spindle.  I had originally made the tool post as Gingery described.  It didn't work very well.  I whipped up an adjustable tool post holder from 3 pieces of 3/8" thick aluminum plate I had laying around.  It's not adjustable up and down, but it sure beats what I had before.  As a bonus, 3/8" bits also fit the holder.  Here you can see the start of the 60 degree point that I'm putting on the spindle.

Gingery talks about purchasing a 60 degree center gauge from Sears.  I don't think Sears has sold them in years.  I was trying to figure where I could buy one when it dawned on me I HAVE A CNC!  I whipped up a model in Sketchup and used my CNC plugin to make the gcode.  I cut it out of some lexan I had laying around.  I made one side at 60 degrees and the other side at 45 degrees (in case I needed it someday).