Laser alighnment tool

[Mark P. Brown]

I saw a post the other day that got me to thinking about how to align the tail stock on my Delta lathe for drilling. Someone said a laser but didn't go into details.
I have a key ring laser pointer and a lathe; I turned a taper on a piece of cherry then drilled it to match the diameter of the laser pen. I then cross cut the cherry to allow the home made chuck to tighten down firmly on the pen, hand pressure is all that is required. Then move the tail stock to the proper position and adjust as needed then lock it down, pop out the pen and chuck place in the wood and tighten the live center.
The cost is 10-15 dollars for the pen laser a scrap of any solid wood and 30 minutes of your time.
Mark

[curtis rosche]

that is cool. then you will also know how straight your bed is too. good idea

[Scott Conners]

How do you ensure the laser is straight inside its body? I've had a couple of keychain type ones that weren't mounted straight - when you rolled them on a desk it was pretty obvious that they weren't parallel with the body (one was a really cheap one that was bad enough to see it by eye just in your hand).

I like the idea though, could be useful.

[Mark P. Brown]

I took a piece of 3/4 plywood notched to fit the bed of the lathe snugly then put the live center in the lathe and tapped it with a mallet. Then I put in the laser and adjust to center of the dimple made by the live center the plywood can be moved to any distance from the head stock to verify it is centered. Shim the tailstock as needed.
Mark

[jason lambert]

Turn on the lathe and spin the laser. if it s off it will just have a bigger dot or a circle.

[Paul Engle]

Scott brings up good point, and being able to adjust does not mean it will stay there when you tighten down on it. Most cheap lasers,the beam is too large of a dia for near accurate work or end up only " real close" , one may have to use the outer edge of the beam to get " way close" and now your dealing with off set the thickness of the beam itself which may taper from start to spot. Machine shops using laser for alignment get pretty spendy , also you cannot tell it it is tilted up or down or off side to side with just a spot to go by, but if slighly crooked is ok then you should be good to go . Even a cheap dial indicator will work very well for less than 25$.and you can do face ,edge,and center to make sure the drill is right on target-straight, but that would be getting pretty compulsive to get that good on .... wood.:eek::D