Old lathe bed, no motor, needs tailstock

I would just use it. In high school shop that's all we had. A little wax and you're good to go.

If the shaft of the tailstock is round and has a flat or a keyway, you might have a machinist make a slip-over morse taper adapter by welding a round piece to the butt end of a morse taper adapter and then drill and bore a hole of the correct size to fit over the tailstock shaft. Then a couple holes could be tapped for set screws to anchor in the flat or keyway.

Derek

2-1/16" and the distance from the center to the top of the ways is 3-23/32". Any ideas you may have would be greatly appreciated.

How about the headstock? Is there a morse taper there? What about the spindle thread/size, is it a standard size, such that you can get chucks or perhaps make chucks for it? Before you get into spending on machining, make sure the rest of the machine is worth it. I picked up a "lathe" at a garage sale before I knew better, with non-standard spindle size and no MT. Never was able to use it, but it got me curious enouth to buy a Delta midi and start turning anyway, and the motor will be used eventually anyway.

Do not worry about the tailstock. For spindles, lube up the dead center and go. They worked fine for the first 6000 years or so of known lathe history.

For faceplate or chuck work, you don't need it anyway. If you need to drill, you can hand-hold a drill with a bit of practice, and a center-spot put in with a parting tool to help get it started. (saftey-crat-notice - if you hand-drill stupidly, I suppose you could manage to hurt yourself - so don't be stupid.)

If you really truly want a morse-taper tailstock, build one out of wood

- look for articles on building an entire lathe from wood, and borrow the tailstock part, adapted to your iron bed. This is a pretty small lathe, so building somethng sturdy enough to suit should not be too difficult.