Drill chuck arbor won't fit into tailstock

[C.F.Plinker]

I have a mini-lathe I use for woodturning. Both the headstock and tailstock have No. 1 Morse Tapers. I recently bought a drill chuck for it. The drill chuck arbor has a No. 1 Morse taper on it for the tailstock and a 33 Jacobs taper for the chuck. My problem is that the Morse Taper end is too long and bottoms out in the tailstock taper before it gets tight.

The small end has an insert that is threaded 1/4-20 which I presume is for use with a drawbar. How can I remove the insert? I would like to do this in order to see if it fits because it would be just a little shorter. If that isn't enough then I could grind or cut it down until it fit.

[Cactus Farmer]

Warm it up and put a bolt with a jamb nut on it into the taper. It may be "locktighted" in to the taper. The heat will allow the insert to move as the locktite is plastic and can be sofetned with some heat.Otherwise just cut it off.

[gnoahhh]

Probably a dumb question but is the 'barrel' (for lack of the proper name) of the tail stock cranked out far enough so the tapered shank has a chance to bottom out?

[C.F.Plinker]

Probably a dumb question but is the 'barrel' (for lack of the proper name) of the tail stock cranked out far enough so the tapered shank has a chance to bottom out?

I have taken the barrel out of the tailstock to make sure that the lead screw can't be what is stopping it from going in all the way. It is the overall length including the insert. I have a live center that is built almost the same way. The difference is that on the live center there is a machine screw in the insert. If I take the machine screw out, it shortens it just enough for me to get it in the barrel.

[Char-Gar]

Not a dumb question, as that was my first thought as well. I am familiar with lathes and from time to time I find the tailstock chuch unable to seat and it is always the "barrel" that is back into the tail stock too far. For you non-lathe folks, this is a lathe design feature to allow you to remove the chuck by just moving the barrel to the far rear position.

[C.F.Plinker]

Warm it up and put a bolt with a jamb nut on it into the taper. It may be "locktighted" in to the taper. The heat will allow the insert to move as the locktite is plastic and can be sofetned with some heat.Otherwise just cut it off.

I will try your idea later today. Right now I have it soaking with Kroil. I hadn't thought that it might be locktighted in.

UPDATE:
I couldn't get it hot enough to loosen the insert up. I even tried running the bolt in until it bottomed out hoping that it would act like a jack and pry in out. No luck so out came the hacksaw. Now it fits. If I don't get enough travel I will just remove a little more.

Thanks to all of you for your ideas and questions.

[bstarling]

I may be missing something, but if the shank of the MT is too long for the tailstock, it can be cut with a chop saw to shorten it. I have a mini lathe that had that problem and I cut the tang end off of the MT so it would go far enough into the tailstock to properly fit the taper. Works just fine now.

Bill

[I'll Make Mine]

The thread in the small end of that drill chuck mount is going to be left hand thread; it's for a locking screw to keep the chuck on the JT-33 (otherwise, it'll pull off if your twist drill catches on breakthrough, or something applies too much side force).

As others have noted, many mini-lathes have "short MT" tailstock sockets; on mine (a Raceway 7x12, from Homier, which is like a "traveling show" version of Harbor Freight) I mounted the drill chuck, then put the solid portion of the drill chuck into my 3-jaw and drilled/bored the small end of the 2MT to clear the internal screw that protrudes into the socket in the tailstock ram. Harder to do with a wood turning lathe, but the chop saw route works (just doesn't look as neat).

[texassako]

I have a HF minilathe that I crank the tailstock out 1/2" to seat one chuck and another MT on a chuck I cut shorter to keep it from bottoming out. I have to remember which is in there so I don't forget and drop the chuck out by cranking the tailstock back in all the way.

[arjacobson]

I may be missing something, but if the shank of the MT is too long for the tailstock, it can be cut with a chop saw to shorten it. I have a mini lathe that had that problem and I cut the tang end off of the MT so it would go far enough into the tailstock to properly fit the taper. Works just fine now.

Bill

I had the same thing with my grizzly g4002. The taper had a "tang" on the end that I just hacked off. Seats great now

[JIMinPHX]

You could put the shaft from the tail stock in the chuck & bore out the base of the MT socket a little deeper. Way down at the small end of the taper, you can just have a clearance hole & it isn't going to cause you any trouble. After you have 4 or 5 diameters of engagement on the taper, the rest is all just window dressing.

While you are messing with the tail stock shaft, you might also want to sink a pair of set screws in there to pick up the tang of the MT so that you will be less likely to spin a tail stock tool in the socket when the tool locks up in the work. That will happen to you eventually & a spun tool in the socket can sometimes tear things up a little. Trying to clean that mess up with a MT reamer is a bit of a craps shoot. Sometimes you manage to keep things concentric. Sometimes you don't.

I find that the nicest solution is to drive 2 dowel pins in parallel to pick up the tang, but a pair of big grubby half-dog point set screws, directly across from each other, also work well & are much easier to install. About a 1/4" - 5/16" set screw should work for a #1 MT.

[rmcc]

I had the same problem with my MT1 chuck in my Atlas 6-18. I am starting to think that MT1 stuff is not as "standard" as MT2 & up. I had an old South Bend 9" and everything on it was spot on for MT2. I have talked to a couple of other guys that have/had Atlas/Craftsman 6" lathes and had the same problem with MT1 stuff.

Rich