Learned something about my metal lathe

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Haynie

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May 20, 2011
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I can't use it to drill. Something is out of whack. I put a micrometer on it and the chuck turns true. Must be the tail stock. Unless there is supposed to be room around the brass. Is there supposed to be room for glue or does the brass fit perfect? guess I have to use the drill press.

Grumble grumble

gonna have to wait for my mandrel to come in.
 
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There is suppose to be a bit of room for glue. You would scrape all the glue off it if
fit perfectly. You can adjust the hole size by using a different drill.
If your tailstock alignment was off, your drill would be off-axis
and likely drill an oversize hole, not smaller.
 
If you mount a piece of round (make sure it is straight) in the chuck (should be a 3 jaw) , bring the tail stock close to the round and turn the lathe on slowly you should be able to see if it lines up with your tail stock.
 
A cigar tube is about 9.75 mm but recommended drill size is 10mm which means u have a small bit of space for glue. 1 mm would be too much slop. That's that far as hole size. If u have tail stock out of alignment you can as said already adjust it
 
A pretty fundamental test to perform.

Drill a hole on the lathe, then remove the drill and the blank and slide the drill bit into the blank. If there is a lot of play, you have some problem with setup or operation. If not then the loose fit of the tubes is related to the wrong drill for that tube.
 
Mark, the simplest of accurate means to test the alignment is to fit after cleaning the morse taper in the head stock and tail stock a dead centre, bring them close together with tail stock locked in position and insert a thin metal strip from a feeler guage between gently wind the tail stock stem until the points gently touch and voila all will be revealed up down, side to side indicating the error if any then proceed from there. Anything else is guess work.

Have success ..Kind regards Peter.
 
Could also be wandering of the bit. Try getting some center bits to start the hole. Takes a little longer but helps tremendously.
 
Do you have to buy center bits online? I've looked at a variety of hardware stores locally and nobody has even heard of them. I show them a picture, and they say that they have never seen one of those and try to sell me a countersink instead.
 
Drill bits tend not to be very accurate on a metal lathe (or anywhere else for that matter). The best way to bore a hole is to use either reamers or boring bars. Drill a hole with a bit that is just under the finished size, then use a reamer of the exact size or a boring bar to finish to size.
Doug
 
bensoelberg said:
Do you have to buy center bits online? I've looked at a variety of hardware stores locally and nobody has even heard of them. I show them a picture, and they say that they have never seen one of those and try to sell me a countersink instead.
Click to expand...

There are 4 Fastenal outlets in Bakerfield, if they are not in stock, you can place an order for in-store pickup.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/search/...All&searchValue=center+drill&Ntt=center+drill

Either the 3/16 or 1/4 version should be fine
 
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