General purpose ER 11 collet chuck

[wongster]

Might I suggest that you save yourself a lot of time and anxiety by buying soft( that means easily machinable) No1 and no ) Morse taper blanks?

Again, there is a lot of information which can be accessed from sites such as Yahoo Unimat which deals with the smaller lathes and making accessories for them.

Thank you for your suggestion.  They are available for sale on Sherline's.  What I'm trying also to do at the same time is to learn how to make one myself.  There were times when I just needed one and shipping one in takes weeks.  Several examples were given on the net on using blanks.

Regards,
Wong

[wongster]

Hi Wong,

Do you have a compound slide on your Sherline? If so, it probably has enough travel to cut MT0 and MT1 tapers which are long enough to work. Strictly, they should respectively be 2" and 2.13" long, but the smaller of my lathes is MT0 in both the spindle and tailstock, and uses a shortened 1.25" version of MT0 (the thin end is absent) with no problems.

Blank ended arbors in MT0 and MT1 are a bit hard to find. There are some in MT1 about 1/3 way down this page http://www.modelmakingsupplies.co.uk/taper-tooling-2-2.htm . The only place I know of for MT0 is Cowells Small Machine Tools, but their prices are horrifying.

Andy
Andy

Hi Andy,

I have the compound.  Hardly use it though.  Several examples can be found on cutting the MT's but I find measuring the smaller end a challenge.  I once bought from a UK site a MT0 live centre which was a little too long.  I was trying to figure out how much to cut from the smaller end so that it fits into the tailstock properly.  I went with the recommended amount.  It seems to seat well but there is some wobbling  at the live centre end.  Don't know if its because of the taper or the live centre not being spot on.

Hi Fergus,

I can purchase the offset centre from Sherline.  Most folks offset their headstock on their Sherline lathe instead.  I'll be trying that soon.

Arnold, sorry for hijacking your thread.

Regards,
Wong

[Fergus OMore]

  I once bought from a UK site a MT0 live centre which was a little too long.  I was trying to figure out how much to cut from the smaller end so that it fits into the tailstock properly.  I went with the recommended amount.  It seems to seat well but there is some wobbling  at the live centre end.  Don't know if its because of the taper or the live centre not being spot on.

Arnold, sorry for hijacking your thread.

Regards,
Wong

I've got a very strange answer- you bought a Number 1 Morse Taper!

This may be difficult to understand at first but I did really answer it earlier when I said-- 0.250" in 10".
The taper was the same for ALL the Morse Tapers but because we are a stupid lot and can't measure, there are now slight discrepancies between the various sizes.

Sorry Arnold for also hi-jacking your thread but this problem is fundamental stuff.

[wongster]

Strange indeed. But it was advertised as MT0... Think I have to start paying more attention to things I buy.

Regards,
Wong