hollow arbor

[Mike Radcliffe]

Since reading of the vacuum chuck I have pondered the possibility of drilling out the solid arbor on my craftsman lathe. Has anyone tried this and how did it go. I am imagining a drill chucck with a morse taper on my tail stock.
I have attached a picture of a small piece of arbutus (madrona). Finished with 1600 grit and mineral oil. Intended for nuts or candies. 3" tall.

[Jim Becker]

There was a recent thread about this. You may or may not be able to do this "at home"...depends on the steel in the spindle and how far you need to go. It may be difficult to do this with a drill bit/chuck mounted in your tail-stock, however, simply because boring metal is hard work and the taper may not hold things secure, even with a draw bolt. You may need a machinist to do the work for you.

[M Toupin]

You'll be hard pressed to drill though a headstock without some serious machine work. The average wood lathe spins way too fast to drill steel at say, 3/8" to 1/2" you'd need. You'd need to remove the spindle and take it to a machinist who could bore it with the proper equipment and coolant required to bore that deep. The other question is if the spindle would even accommodate being bored out. If it's thinned out in the center area it may not even be able to be bored. While I doubt the shaft is hardened, it's another consideration that might play in.

A better option in your situation is a vacuum chuck that adapts to the spindle side like the VacuuMaster vacuum chuck that doesn't require a thorough bored headstock

http://sierramold.com/Wvchuck.htm

Mike