General Metal Lathe question

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dansills

dansills

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I am thinking of going to a metal lathe. My question is are all metal lathes MT2 in both head and tail stock? In other words will I have to buy a different collet chuck and other accessories for the headstock spindle as well as jacobs chuck, etc for the tail & head stock?

TIA

Dan
 
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You will absolutely have to purchase the collet chuck system part from the lathe, or just order one w/the lathe purchase. You may be able to swing one in on a deal? The tail stock dimension will not be same on all lathes. it depends on how large of a lathe you purchase............Jan
 
You have an MT2 collet chuck?

Mine is the threaded one from PSI. I bought a bolt on for my metal lathe on eBay. The ER32 rings should be the same, so you can swap back and forth without removing the collet.
 
The headstock normally has a larger taper to provide a larger through bore in the headstock, the tailstock is smaller because it's principle purpose is to both center and provide support for longer pieces and to allow attachment of a drill chuck, taper drills, reamers, tap and die holders, other tooling etc. to work on the end of pieces. The larger the lathe the larger the tapers will be.

Other things being equal, bigger is better.

Collets are, IMO, sort of optional for most lathe work with 3 or 4 jaw chucks being more useful for a larger range of holding (YMMV). I've used a small lathe for all kinds of various work for years and don't have a collet chuck system, one of those things that would be nice to have but not justifiable cost wise for what I do with what I already have. A collet is more precision than a jaw chuck if you are intending very high precision work. A Jacobs (drill) chuck is usually mounted on a taper for use in the tailstock to hold drill bits, taps, dies, reamers, countersinks, etc. and a reasonably good one is more than adequate for anything intended in a home shop where ultra high precision is required (ultra high precision being above the skill level of most non professional machinists and hobby lathes anyway).


This may be of some help in answering some questions about Lathes.
 
plano_harry said:
Yes, my HF 7x10 has no taper in the headstock. All chucks are bolt mounted.
Click to expand...

Unless something has changed drastically with the 7x10 your headstock should have a Morse 3 taper in it.

The chucks mount on the flange but there is a #3 Morse taper to the headstock bore to mount a dead center or other taper mounted tooling.
 
If you are thinking of turning pens and other smaller objects, you might want to check out some Mini Metal lathes. Some can be fitted with a milling attachment and a ton of other add ons also. HF havs a nice mid size metal lathe that can do almost anything a full size lathe can do, only on a smaller scale, and a smaller price. Jim S
 
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plantman said:
If you are thinking of turning pens and other smaller objects, you might want to check out some Mini Metal lathes. Some can be fitted with a milling attachment and a ton of other add ons also. HF havs a nice mid size metal lathe that can do almost anything a full size lathe can do, only on a smaller scale, and a smaller price. Jim S
Click to expand...

Like this one?:

7" x 12" Mini Metal Lathe
 
We could both be wrong. The HF website says the spindle is MT2. I have always used a bolt on chuck or collet, so I will have to take their word of it.

frank123 said:
plano_harry said:
Yes, my HF 7x10 has no taper in the headstock. All chucks are bolt mounted.
Click to expand...

Unless something has changed drastically with the 7x10 your headstock should have a Morse 3 taper in it.

The chucks mount on the flange but there is a #3 Morse taper to the headstock bore to mount a dead center or other taper mounted tooling.
Click to expand...
 
plano_harry said:
We could both be wrong. The HF website says the spindle is MT2. I have always used a bolt on chuck or collet, so I will have to take their word of it.

frank123 said:
plano_harry said:
Yes, my HF 7x10 has no taper in the headstock. All chucks are bolt mounted.
Click to expand...

Unless something has changed drastically with the 7x10 your headstock should have a Morse 3 taper in it.

The chucks mount on the flange but there is a #3 Morse taper to the headstock bore to mount a dead center or other taper mounted tooling.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


Mine has an MT3 Headstock taper and an MT2 tailstock taper. Every one I've ever seenn from any manufacturer has the same tapers but I'm mostly familiar with mine and its various clones.

See if your bore throught the headstock spindle is 3/4 or 1/2 inch, if it's 3/4 then you have an MT3 taper since an MT2 is large enough diameter to accommodate that large a bore through the spindle. (FWIW, the 3/4 bore can be reamed out to 13/16 safely to allow actually working on a piece of 3/4 inch rod)
 
They're different and depends on spindle capacity. My small 10-24 Jet lathe is MT4 spindle and MT2 tail.

The spindle taper is generally bigger because the cutting forces on the bigger diameter pieces held by the headstock are much larger than what is normally experienced by smaller diameter drills, mills, or reamers in the tailstock. But, anything can get screwed up so seat your tapers properly!

Very often I'll use a ER40 collet chuck with integral MT4 shank in that lathe if I want better precision than can be expected from the 3-jaw scroll chuck.

Cheers,
Rich

Rich
 
dansills said:
plantman said:
If you are thinking of turning pens and other smaller objects, you might want to check out some Mini Metal lathes. Some can be fitted with a milling attachment and a ton of other add ons also. HF havs a nice mid size metal lathe that can do almost anything a full size lathe can do, only on a smaller scale, and a smaller price. Jim S
Click to expand...

Like this one?:

7" x 12" Mini Metal Lathe
Click to expand...

Yes !! Watch for a sale and use the 25% off cupon. From the ones I looked at in the HF store, the 7X12 had MT2 tapers head and rear. The 8X12 had a MT3 taper in the headstock. Rear ???? Comming from China, you never know if something is going to change from one days production to the next. So I think everybody may be correct !! Jim S
 
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dansills said:
I am thinking of going to a metal lathe. My question is are all metal lathes MT2 in both head and tail stock? In other words will I have to buy a different collet chuck and other accessories for the headstock spindle as well as jacobs chuck, etc for the tail & head stock?
Click to expand...

Dan; The other answers are spot on. I'll expand a bit on the taper issue. If you get a lathe it is possible to get an MT adapter like this one. This one goes from MT3 (larger) to MT2 (Smaller). It is possible to go smaller to larger, but you loose about 4" of space on the bed of the lathe. Use caution with the adapter, it is possible to jam a taper onto the adapter so tightly that you can't get it off! DAMHIKT.

If you use a collet chuck with an MT taper, it is not possible to feed stock thru the headstock. They do make thread-on collet chucks like this one. Thread-on collet chucks are available for metal lathes, but you MUST match the thread on the spindle nose of the lathe. These are more common in EU countries, so a search of UK stores will turn up something that you can use. Hope this helps.
 
randyrls said:
...

If you use a collet chuck with an MT taper, it is not possible to feed stock thru the headstock.

...
Click to expand...

Sorry to poke back but that's not quite true. I will depend on the size of the collet chuck and whether it has a tang. My ER40 MT4 chuck has a clear pass-through of 1/2 inch. That's not good for some larger barrels and caps but it's certainly OK for the smaller stuff. If one could find an ER50 chuck then you'd probably have plenty of room but I don't think you could find one (ER50) with the small MT3, MT2 shank. Anyway, ER50's only go down to around 1/4 inch.

Cheers,
Rich
 
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plano_harry said:
You have an MT2 collet chuck?

Mine is the threaded one from PSI. I bought a bolt on for my metal lathe on eBay. The ER32 rings should be the same, so you can swap back and forth without removing the collet.
Click to expand...

I have the psi one too that screws on my wood lathe. I'm confused what you mean by a bolt on. I'm looking at the HF 7x12 mentioned earlier.
 
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