Stebcentre

John, Steb centers have been available from Packard Woodworks and Craft Supply USA for several years. All reports I have heard about them have been positive. However, I have not used one myself, so this is not a 1st person testimonial.

Lyn, have you done an evaluation on these?

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

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Hi Ken, I haven't ever formally written anything up on these, but I do have both sizes and like them a lot. Other than for roughing out big stuff, when I use a BWT Texas drive, these are what I almost always use for between centers work.

The Steb Center is notable for two things, Rather than drive spurs, the drive ends in a toothed/serrated ring with a center drive point. The toothed ring is either 7/16 in or 13/16 inch if I am remembering correctly (depending on size) and the center point is 3/16 inch hardened steel rod. The center rod is spring loaded to normally extend out past the level of the toothed ring.

The toothed ring is great because it cause no wedging/splitting forces that can occur with traditional spurred drives. The spring loaded center point is the real feature though, as it allows stable positioning with adjustable drive force. You can essentially back off the tailstock ram to allow the spindle to remain stationary in position between the live center and this drive center pointed rod. Cranking in the tailstock ram will compress the central rod and allow the spindle to become pressed up against the toothed drive ring. How much ram pressure will determine how much rotational resistance will be tolerated before the spindle will begin to slip against the teeth. If you creat a lot of ram pressure, then the ring is pretty much as effective as any comparably sized spur drive, but back off pressure and you can count on your spindle remaining located, but capable of easily slipping when a catch or skate occurs. Dimply or drilling a shallow central hole in the drive end will further increase the ability for the central point to remain in contact under light pressure, though usually enough of a depression is made just by tighening down the tailstock ram once.

Reportedly, production turners can remove and replace spindles without ever having to stop the lathe, just loosening the tailstock, pressing the spindle up against the center rod by hand, and then tightening down the tailstock. I have tried this technique a few times and it does work, but rarely am I in such a position that the time to stop the lathe might be considered troublesome.

All in all a great drive center. I wish they made a headstock spindle mount version (like the BWT's Texas drives), so I didn't have to mess with removing my vacuum chucking adapter to deal with dismounting the current version from the Morse taper. It offers good clearance, doesn't split the wood and allows for controlled engagement. Just about everything I could ask for in a drive center meant for spindle work.

Lyn

Ken Mo> John,

Lyn J. Mangiameli wrote:(clip) I wish they made a headstock spindle mount version (like the BWT's Texas drives), so I didn't have to mess with removing my vacuum chucking adapter (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^ Lyn, you are referring to the way the vacuum connection gets in the way of the knockout bar, right? I no longer have that problem, since my Stubby has a built-in connection. However, on my previous lathe, I dealt with that by making a split-nut which I could slip over the threaded spindle--then unscrewing the nut drove off whatever was in the Morse taper.

Let me know if you would like to have one of these.

Hi Lyn

Yes the Stebcentre is a great asset to any woodturner. I have used them for several years and found them excellent. I have a couple of the Sorby ones and they are superb, one of which is an 1 1/4" in 2MT which I think would be of interest to you. I found details and the sizes available on the robert-sorby.co.uk website and then got it from my local dealer. I not sure if Sorby make a spindle mount version, but if not, I am sure that if enough of us ask they may produce some.

Merlin

What is the advantage og the stebcentre.

Two things which, depending on your own turning work, are pretty useful about it that I like ...

1) The serrations. They don't mark your work as much or as deep. They don't want to split your turning as much as a 4 or 2 spur drive. They work pretty well on uneven surfaces where maybe only half of the serrations are actually touching wood. You'll get several serrations digging in to drive the wood around instead of maybe just 1 spur on a 2-spur drive.

2) The spring-loaded center point. You can back off the tailstock pressure on a spinning piece a little (with the lathe still running) and the center of the stebcentre will still keep contact with the wood but the serrations won't. The wood will stop spinning but still be caught between the centers while the lathe is still running. This way, you can quickly check your work without having to turn the lathe on/off as much. This helps with production turning as well. You can just keep the lathe running while mounting and replacing work as you want.

- Andrew