centering cones?

[spokelacer]

I am building my first jig/fixture and my friend Walt, from Waltworks suggested that I try to find tube centering cones for use in clamping tubes. Any ideas on good sources? And by the way, getting someone to lathe them for me is way too expensive!
Thanks!

[David Kirk]

I'd talk with Anvil and see if they will sell you just the cones. If not i'd scour Mcmaster-Carr and see what you can repurpose.

dave

[JLP]

Or Joe Bringhelli

[druptight]

Go on ebay and search for "centering cone" - you'd be surprised how many options come up. I think they're commonly used for lathes, etc.

If you want to really go on the cheap, I knew I'd read this on the web somewhere before and google didn't fail me:

http://www.outsideconnection.com/gallant/hpv/jig/

This guy used the double sided stainless cocktail jiggers you can buy at basically any liquor store in the country, cut it in half where they come to a point and made it into a centering cone.

[Scooper]

MechWerks (http://mechwerks.com/Jigparts.htm) sells centering cones for $75 per pair.

[staggerwing]

What ID and OD are you talking about? Aluminum OK?

I have a small metal lathe, and if you want something simple, say a 3" long round bar, of 1.5" OD and 0.75" bore, with a 45 degree bevel on one end, it wouldn't be hard to cook up. Even better if none of those dimensions aren't terribly critical.

Quick update: There are a couple of interesting options, including 2 from Park Tool, if you just head over to Amazon, and search for "centering cone".

[Admiral Ackbar]

if you can find a friendly machinist I'm sure they could turn something up for you. its a pretty simple and straight forward process

[unterhausen]

if you think that everybody and his brother wants to build bicycle frames, you might be surprised at how many people were going to get rich making motorcycle frames. Last time I looked on ebay there were a couple of people selling cones for building motorcycle frames. I have used tapered machine toolholders. Cat/nmtb 40 or 50 should work for everything up to 44mm head tubes.