Morse Taper/Drill Chuck Play out - suggestions?

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karlkuehn

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Hey guys, got the 60 degree live tail issue taken care of.

I have a new Jacobs chuck for my new Jet, and the taper adapter that goes from the MT2 to the Jacobs taper has a little wobble to it, and when I put the drill chuck on it, the wobble gets a little bigger at the business end of the chuck. I guess I need to get rid of the wobble at the Morse end of the adapter. Any suggestions how to go about this? I know the MT on the Jet is true, as the stock headpiece that came with it runs perfect. My plan is to hold the adapter, spin the lathe end while I push the adapter in - then sand down the shiny off-center contact points that show up from the friction. Anyone have any thoughts on why I shouldn't do this?

On a sidenote, I was at Woodcraft today to replace the wrong part they gave me (they gave me a JT6 MT2 adapter to fit my new Jacobs keyless chuck into my MT2 headstock, when it should have been a JT33. The guys there are not as knowledgeable as they like to come off, and it felt really good to prove them wrong on a couple points and squash the posturing, largely due to the knowledge I've gained by hanging out with the lot of you lathe nerds. heh :D).

While there, I asked if there was such a thing as an adapter to go from MT2 to MT1. The guy very sagely informed me that he'd never seen anything like that. Lo and behold, not 10 minutes later when we were rooting through the locked display case to find a 60 degree live center for my worn out little Shop Fox to use for finishing, the guy picks up a old, greasy little box, reads it, sets it aside, and I looked at the label that says 1-2 Morse Taper Adapter and chuckled. There it was, my little adapter!

What a great little piece of metal. I now have a whole new world of inter-lathe accessory swapping available to me!

Anyways, thanks for looking and the help.

:D
 
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Rifleman1776

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Karl, even though all this equipment, such as Morse tapers, both male and female, are built to the same standards, there can be some variations. One might be made to min, the other to max. Or yet another just plain wrong. Only by trying other pieces of MT equipment can you determine where the wobble problem comes from. The female taper can be trued with a MT reamer. Expensive.
 

karlkuehn

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The other MT2 fittings I have all run true in the female end, so I'm pretty sure the problem's not in there.

I think I've deduced the problem.

After setting the Jacobs taper into the chuck, as predicted the wobble was magnified with the extra length. The longer the attachment, the more wobble you're going to see, obviously. I chucked a mandrel into the Jacobs and the wobble was bad enough that I wouldn't even try to turn a pen.

I slid the tailstock in and tightened it, and at that end, the mandrel ran true, but I'm sure it'd eventually wear something, bearings, the cone on the center, etc. At this point, on the chuck end, the wobble was still really bad, so there's something wrong there.

What I did to check it (stupid or not - probably a little dangerous) is turn on the lathe without anything in the headstock side, and holding the chuck/adapter assembly in my hand, slowly slid it in the hole till I felt it getting tight, and paused while the male and female parts ran on each other for a bit building some friction. I could feel the wobble in the hand that was holding the chuck. I pulled it out and looked at the MT adapter - no marks yet - so I put it back in and pushed a little harder laterally to the point where it was wanting to grab tight, and held it there (with my sleeves rolled up and ready to let go in a split second if it really grabbed), building up some heavier friction.

Here's what I noticed when I pulled the chuck and adapter back out:

MushroomedTaper.jpg


Looks like the problem is that when our Taiwanese machinist brethren milled this, the Morse taper came out fine, but when they sent it over the knuckleheads at the press, the threaded end piece that they muscled in there was put in with such force that it mushroomed the taper right at the end. Concur?

My next plan of attack is to mill the mushroomed end down to where it's supposed to be and try it again, trusting that the rest of the taper is still true.

Man, I shoulda been a machinist! [8D]

Unfortunately, since I'm not, and don't have their tools at my disposal, you really don't want to know what I'm going to do to 'mill' that end down. [B)]

*roots around in tool arsenal*

Now, what did I do with that angle grinder? [}:)]
 

karlkuehn

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Well, it ain't pretty, but it worked. Runs true blue, ready for pens again! Can't wait to turn the first one on the new lathe. Hope I don't run into any more snags. Bet you thought I was kidding about the angle grinder, huh? heh [:D]

Solution.jpg
 
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