Not so good....

[Marc Phillips]

My new dead and live center finally arrived....

So, off I go to try it out.

<h3>The good news...</h3>
Worked real well... truthfully, never saw one of my blanks spin so smoothly, and I found that I like working on one blank at a time.

<h3>Not so good news, but workable later on...</h3>
Couldn't get my tool rest in close enough... gotta change that for sure..
Dust collector couldn't get in there either... gotta change that too...

<h3>Bad news</h3>
The blank was spinning so great... then it wasn't... not sure what happened, but it developed a bad wobble, and by then there was not enough wood left to turn it again to straighten it out...

I'm confused now... since the bushings were still spinning perfectly smooth... no vibration at all... but the blank got worse and worse.

I could use some help.... I am sure I did something, like tightened the tailstock up too tight or applied too much pressure when sanding or something.... I did try repositioning the blank, and even reversing it on the lathe, but it still wobbled the same. Looking at the end of the blank it looks thicker on one side than the other too....

 

[ldb2000]

sounds like you might have tightened the tailstock too tight and the pressure caused the tube to warp

 

[Marc Phillips]

My centers don't line up... they are off horizontally, the vertical alignment looks great. The pic exaggerates the amount off... just off a very small amount but I am going to have to try and do something about that...

 

[jwoodwright]

You didn't say what kind of lathe and if the head swivels... All kinds of alignment issues...

Check your Tailstock, the nut on my Jet Mini had loosened enough that it didn't lock down true. Check for sawdust on the locking plate under the Tailstock.

 

[Firefyter-emt]

That is one more advantage of having a dead center is that you need it to align your lathe!

Do you have adjustment screws on the tailstock to move it sideways? If so you can fine tune it there. Or, if you do not, you may need to play around and even adjust the bolt holes for your headstock so it matches the tailstock properly. This adjustment is kind of a basic set up needed before really any turning can be done. (and checked every now and then as well)

The tool rest, yea.. you do need a smaller one to work with.

Now as for the wobble, I have never had that happen.I would wonder first that it's fromt he misaligned centers, then I would wonder if your blank was milled flat. Do you use a pen mill of disk sander? If you properly mill the blank, and your centers are aligned, I may suspect the wood, but it's a strange problem. The centers will mess up your blank easily so I really think that's it.

Let us know how you make out.

 

[Marc Phillips]

I have a Jet 1236...

I have cleaned and filed the guides on the underside of the tailstock, and it is really close now...

I don't know if I have adjustments on the headstock... will check it out for sure...

Thanks all....

 

[Randy_]

I'm not sure that a "SLIGHT" misalignment will cause you a problem. I'll have to think about that a little.

That being said, how much of an alignment problem do you have? What is/was the horizontal distance between the two points?

 

[Marc Phillips]

Originally posted by Randy_

I'm not sure that a "SLIGHT" misalignment will cause you a problem. I'll have to think about that a little.

That being said, how much of an alignment problem do you have? What is/was the horizontal distance between the two points?

I don't have any way to measure this... If you tried to slide the tip of a pen refill between the centers it wouldn't fit.. so... guessing about 1/32" or so....

It's been cold, so I haven't wanted to crawl under the lathe to check it out and see if I can align it... I did turn another pen http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=32274 and it went great... no problems at all.