How to properly seat a morse taper

The pressure of using the spur or other drive is enough to seat it in the headstock. The pressure of using the drill tends to seat the Jacobs chuck in the tailstock but most are eqippped with threaded hole for 1/4" all thread to secure it in place with a nut on the other end. This is called a draw bar.

Steve, perhaps a nitpicky answer, but there is a little more to setting a drill in a drill (Jacobs) chuck than seating its Morse tapered arbor in the lathe spindle. Rotate the drill bit as you close the jaws on the shaft, not the twists. Tighten at each keyhole around the chuck as you close the jaws. Make sure the workpiece is centered. Make a small entry hole with a center bit, tip of a skew or small gouge to start out right.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

You should only have to push it into the morse taper with your hands.

Once it is in it should be difficult to remove and the drive or the chuck should not spin inside. If it does you may have a slight defect either on the drill chuck or drive or inside the taper.

All it takes is a little grit getting inside the taper and metal can build up and keep your drive from seating correctly.

I had a problem > Perhaps a silly question, but is there more to properly setting a drill

As others have stated you shouldn't have to bang it in. Simply putting into the matching sleave so that it bottoms should be sufficient. If it spins then its probably due to dirt of some sort either on the tapered shaft or its matching sleave.

These basically work because it is tapered and the match between the shaft and the cleave is very good.

Frank

Hello Steve,

I was helping a fellow the other night with his new lathe and to my surprise the #2 taper in both the headstock and tailstock were not machined properly which resulted in my Jacob's chuck not seating properly. The hole in the head/tailstock was 3/8 and the diameter of the smallest part of a #2 MT should be around 0.572 and I suspect this one was a bit bigger resulting in my #2 not being able to seat as the end of it butted up against the smaller

3/8 shoulder. I suggested he take his new lathe back and request a new one with the properly machined tapers. I was quite surprised as the lathe he got was the same make and model as mine I bought a year ago and mine is alright. Oh well it must have been made on a Monday or Friday.... ha ha. To temporarily solve his problem it only took a single ply of newspaper to shim the taper to fit. The live center and drive center that came with the lathe fit alright but were stubby #2's. I told him another way to get around that problem would be to just cut or grind the smaller end of the taper (if he got a taper that wouldn't seat) off by an 1/8th of an inch or so. Do what you gotta do.

Just my two bit's.

Bernie Bober.

I have heard of some mini-lathes not accepting standard #2 morse tapers; they require the stubby ones. Billh

Oh,oh. What you said!

There are _no_ short types... except for the ones I own and we use at the shop, which really cannot exist....

Thanks all. It's one of those things where you don't know what you don't know.

A light tap with a wood mallet and all is secure with a Chuck from Lee Valley.

I now have a related question. The lathe is a Jet 1442.

Amoung other accessories,1442 comes with a live center and a rod for "pushing out" morese tapered accessories. The rod popped the drice center out of the headstock as expected. When I tried this on the tailstock, it popped out the "pin" in the center of the live center, not the whole live center assembly as I had expected.

So, how do you remove the live center from the tailstock of a jet 1442?

Thanks,

Steve

Put something slightly wider than the final gap between the back of the center and the quill housing in there and crank it back.

I take it you have the Nova center? Don't use the rod that fits through the taper for anything but that purpose, If it mushrooms because you're knocking out the headstock taper, you will have to get another. Get a larger rod from your local box store if your tailstack will accommodate it, and use it at both ends. My antique Delta doesn't have a open bore in the tailstock, so it's not an option.

Steve, are you sure it is not self-ejecting? Cranking the tailstock all the way would remove the live center if it is self ejecting. My Jet mini has a thru hole on the tailstock and is self ejecting. Martin Long Island NY