Stuck Tail Center

[Tim Thiebaut]

I went to use my lathe this afternoon and wanted to change out the live center for a jacobs chuck and the live center wouldnt come out. I have the Jet 1220, when you back the quill off with the handle it auto ejects the center when you get back far enough. I had to take the entire thing apart and drive the center out from the back with a make shift knock out rod. A fairly good size portion of the inside of the quill is scared up pretty badly, there is also an area on the live center mt2 that is scared as well. I have always been very careful about cleaning off the MT;s before inserting them into the headstock or tailstock so truthfully I have no idea how this happened. I buffed out the live center MT with some 600 wet/dry and steel wool to polish, and hit it with some spray lube I had, seems to work ok now but I am seriously concerned about it happeneing again.

Should I be lubing the quill and MT's more often and if so what should I use to lube them with?

Has anyone had this problem before? What caused it do you know?

With the inside of the quill scared up is there a way to get in there and polish it up, should I order a new one now before it gets worse, the lathe is less then 2 months old at this point.

Any input would be great, thanks everyone, Tim

[Ron Stadler]

That sucks, haven't had that problem yet with my lathe, but it will be interesting to here what others comment about this. Iv'e never oiled or lubricated inside the quill or mt, didn't know you were supposed to, thought it might cause slipping, anyway hope you get it figured out.

[Curt Fuller]

Tim, some centers and jacobs chucks don't have a long enough tang or arbor or whatever you call it to self eject. When that's the case, just put a block of wood or even a wide skew layed flat on its side between the back of the center and the cast iron part of the tailstock. Then when you back off the quill, it will push the center out. I'm not sure what you mean by the quill getting scared but the threads on the quill can use a small amount of grease to keep them working smoothly. However, the MT (both the male part on the center and the female part in the quill) should be dry and free of any lubricant. The morse taper is meant to be metal against metal so it doesn't spin. If it's scared, it could be from the two parts spinning against each other. Maybe you could post some pics of the scaring.

[Harry Robinette]

Tim
Some of the turning stores sell a MT cleaner I use one every couple of weeks,most people don't ever use anything and have no problem.I don't lube my MT with anything Like I said clean every couple weeks and wipe off ever thing that goes in it.Going on 12 years and right now 5 wood lathes and 2 metal in use most of the time.
Hope this helps
Harry

[David E Keller]

I have a jacobs chuck that won't self eject, and I generally just give it a gentle rap with a wide skew or scraper to knock it loose. I agree with Curt about keeping the mating surfaces of the morse taper dry and free from lube and/or debris. Craftsuppies and others sell a little doodad(not the real name) that can be used to clean the female portion of the taper, but I've never used one.

[Michael Mills]

"went to use my lathe this afternoon and wanted to change out the live center for a jacobs chuck"
Could you Jacobs chuck be the culprit? If a bit got stuck in the wood I guess it would turn the taper if the taper wasn’t seated. If your live center is turning I don’t see how it could have scared things up. The only thing I can think up to polish up the inside is to use some double sided tape on the taper with your 600 wet/dry and work it slowly to try and remove any burr. I know reamers are sold (not the same as the cleaner) but I don’t know anything about them.
Should I be lubing the quill and MT's more often and if so what should I use to lube them with? I have never lubed mine but mine is not a Jet so I don’t know what Jet suggest. I do clean them with a baby-bottle brush occasionally and if it looks bad I run in a shop towel on a dowel with mineral spirits.

[Tim Thiebaut]

Ok I do think I made a mistake in my terminology....I should have said the female portion of the MT is scared. And you know if it is the MT spinning that is causing it I guess that makes since, I have always been worried about getting it stuck so I usualy slide it in just till it grabs. And on a side note I have never lubed it until tonight as I was worried it was to dry when I was cleaning it up tonight and wondered it that was what caused it so I did lube it at that time. It sounds to me from all of the input here that I should do the following....

Clean and "degrease" both male and female portions of the MT, make sure they are smooth with no burrs.
When I seat the MT I assume now I should place in rather firmly into place correct?
And in the future if it does get stuck I will try placing the shaft of a skew between the center and the tailstock body while turning the handle back to pop it out, this makes since to thanks for this tip.
Does this sound about right?
As always, thank you all so much for your input and help....Tim

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Tim if there is scoring in your female morse taper, then you should have that removed, the scored metal is not smooth anymore and so the male Morse taper will not seat as it should be.

I would take the tailstock shaft to a machine shop and have them run a morse taper reamer in there to smoothen out the Morse taper opening.

Oh and yes never lubricate a morse taper surface, also make sure any male Morse taper you use is clean and without any scoring on it, always firmly seat a Morse taper, and hold on to your drill chuck body so it won't spin in your tailstock, or else you will have it scored HTH :-)

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Tim,

One other suggestion if I may.

I keep an air hose at the lathe when turning. Any time I go to change anything on tail stock or the drive spindle, I use the air hose to blow the morse tapers clean. I also wipe the male morse tapers on the accessories with a clean paper towel.

As others have said. I never lube just clean the morse taper. I have even used a solvent soaked rag...and pushed it into the morse tapers to clean out some of crud in them.

Good luck!

[Tim Thiebaut]

Thanks Leo & Ken, and all above that responded, I will degrease it all this morning and give it a shot. I Must have picked something up on it and not even realized it.

[Dan Forman]

You can probably buy a morse taper reamer for what you you would pay a machine shop to do it for you. I had to do that when a drive spur damaged my Powermatic during a bad catch. Then you would be prepared if anything ever happened again.

Dan

[Dennis Ford]

+1 on buying a reamer. Putting a center in the damaged taper is likely to cause more damage to both unless you can clean up the burrs.

[Sid Matheny]

I also would get a 2MT reamer. Enco has one for $22.99 that would be fine for what you need.

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT?PMAKA=891-4730&PMPXNO=3904656&PARTPG=INLMK3


Sid

[Tim Thiebaut]

Yup I am going to order one of those reamers asap, I also found a new part I am going to order and have on hand...just in case, $28 for the brand new part, wont hurt to have it sitting in my tool drawer just in case, thanks for all of your help everyone, if I was trying to learn all of this without your input here it would make it much more difficult to say the least....Tim

[Alan Heffernan]

I would use a male taper and put three strips of super fine grit emory paper on it. Use some spray adhesive to stick the strips of sand paper on the taper 120 degrees apart. Put some machine oil or mineral oil on the papered taper and then gently lap the rough spot out of the receiver. A few gentle turns may knock the high spot off.