Building shell end-mill holder

First step was turning the taper. I use a home made taper turning jig set for a 2-mt taper. The 2" shell end-mill I am building this for has a .75" id. so I started with a piece of 1.125" piece of scrap steel I had around. Using the taperjig this was an easy but time consuming job considering the amount of material I had to remove.

The piece of steel I used was of unknown type and I had a hard time getting a good finish on the taper. After the taper was turned to about .002" in oversize, I mounted a small grinding wheel in a flexible shaft. With the flexible shaft mounted to the cross slide I ground the taper for a better finish. When grinding on the lathe always cover the bed with a rag or something to protect it. The very abrasive grinding dust will get all over and in everything .

Unfortunatly I did not have an extra set of batteries for the camera so did not get pictures of the maching of the holder end. To make sure the holder end was concentric I mounted the taper in a 2 - 3 mt sleve. I did not have a 3/8-16 tap to match the drawbar in the mill I decided to just through drill the holder and tap both ends for 1/4-20 and used a piece of all thread for the drawbar. I turned the outside diamater down to clean up the outside and then turned the .75" dia. arbor for the end-mill. I slid the end-mill on the arbor and marked out the position of the drive slots in the end-mill. The holder was moved to the mill and slots milled .2" deep on each side of the holder. Holes drilled and tapped for 8-32 screws in the center of each slot. A piece of .375" square stock was milled for a loose fit in the drive slot of the end-mill. Two pieces of this were cut to length and drilled for clearance holes for the 8-32 button head cape screws. A plug was turned to fit in the other end of the end mill. It was drilled and counter sunk for a 1/4-20 SHCS to hold the end-mill in place.