Stuck Morse Taper in Warco Major 3024YZ

I can't see any heat damage on the outside of the spindle nose, but I'm far from a metallurgic expert. I'll take a pic next time I'm in the workshop and post it.

If you fully extend the quill, could you use a heat gun on the upper end, so that the heat travels down and expands it, with tension is applied by either wedges or the sleeve and clamp nut?

Sleeve and clamp my would be my choice. A lot of office can be applied with a 1.5 mm thread.

This should reduce the risk of heating the chuck as well as the quill.

Howard.

When I had an open ended sleeve stick I made a crude extractor to release it.

A 1/4 BSF thread can exert an enormous force!

Since the mill was hors de combat, the slots had to be cut (Not very neatly or accurately ) with a hacksaw.

Once the mil was again useable, I made a new piece using a slitting saw for the slots.

I made another version, in case the 5 - 3MT sleeve stuck in the lather.

The picture is the first one in my albums, if anyone is interested.

The nut at "The business end" is there so thatb the split sleeve can be forced through the open ended sleeve, before being expanded by the small cone (Loctited to the studding ) as the outer nut is tightened.

I now use the type of open ended sleeve with an extractor nut!

Howard

I don't know about the Warco Major but my Warco Minimlll has a hole in the quill housing that can be aligned with the the spindle to lock it. One rotates the spindle by hand until the holes align and insert a steel bar. This a useful feature I say this in case the Warco Major has this hole which would take any strain off the gears with reference to my previous comment Colin

Following on from Colin Hawes' comment, presumably there is either no slot for a taper drift, or there bis no tang on the device stuck in the spindle?

Howard

There's a slot, I could put a drift in there so that the spindle is locked as Colin suggests.

The taper is threaded, so no tang, I tried an MT4 drift but it touched the far side of the arbour before contacting the top of the taper. I drive a pair of drifts back to back in, but one of them got mauled up.

Remove the drawbar, check the threads and cut a short section of suitable bolt with a screwdriver slot added to screw into the end of the stuck tool. This should be screwed in at least 1 1/2 diameters and show in the slot, so measure carefully first. Then your wedges will extract the tool easily.

You should be able to make an L shaped piece of steel that can fit into the slot and contact the top of the collet chuck but leave enough room at the top to put the drift into the slot.

Martin C

I am not sure I have picked up the spindle design details. If the quill extends and it has a vertical slot for a morse ejection wedge, then there might still be hope to eject it that way. In this situation where things have been over tightened, poor tooling is very unlikely to succeed, it must be as solid as feasible..

Plan A. Suppose the drawbar thread is M10, and the drawbar hole is 13mm diameter. Get an M10 cap screw, turn down the head to go inside 13mm, remove the drawbar, attach a hex bit to something long, eg some plastic tubing, and manipulate the cap screw down the spindle and screw into the morse arbour so that the head makes solid contact. It need not be tightened, though that might improve chances.

Now use a proper morse wedge to attempt release. The real article is correctly heat treated, and the top edge fits the slot radius. File tangs are dangerous and much less effective! Try smearing the ejection wedge with moly grease to minimise friction. You may still need to hit the wedge pretty hard.

Plan B. Turn up a T piece from 0.250 thick steel (for MT2 slot) that slides inside the arbour thread at one end, and the top of the T about 0.560 in wide and similar in height to the non existent tang. Poke this into the ejection slot and manipulate down into position, then try to eject as in Plan A.

Edited By Macolm on 21/08/2022 19:01:18

When you manage to get it out, IF you want, you can buy screw in tangs for 2Mt and 3 MT tooling.

But obviously precludes the subsequent use of a drawbar.

A drawbar prevents the holder m,dropping out. But it is not necessary to apply much torque to it.

Running with the drawbar slightly loose, and cutting with an End Mill,as already suggested may shake the chuck loose. Some times it happens even when the drawbar seems to have been tightened sufficiently!.

It may be that it will require some time milling just for the sake of it, so that the chuck and the quill heat up together , so that the interrupted cuts provide enough vibration to shake the chuck free.

Howard

Thanks, keeping a drawbar seems like the safer prospect, I'm keen to modify the spindle to make it self extracting if I can find a suitable design. I've been milling some wedge plates with the draw bar undone by a couple of turns. Most of the way through that now and no sign of it easing up.

Are we there yet?

Tony

Following on from Macolm's Plan A above.

If your mill drill is the same/similar to the Axminster one, there is a manual Here; see p18 for the extraction details.
https://www.axminstertools.com/media/downloads/505109_manual.pdf

I'd be looking at replacing the drawbar, though not screwing it in to the chuck yet, and looking sideways through the oval extraction hole.
This should show how far the 3MT arbor sits below the base of the hole. Make a slug to screw into the top of the arbor, or as suggested above, which might be better, find an Allen screw to extend the arbor into the hole, and proceed with your proper extraction wedge.
The advantage of an Allen screw, is that you could use a long length of hex bar to remove it if need be.

Bill

Not yet, I've started on the tapered wedges, I think an M10 socket screw would fit, I don't have hex bar but knowing that's an option if it does get stuck would be useful.

Progress is slow, this is my first time on the mill and work is mostly consuming me at the moment.

Just to complicate your life I would stick a piece of say 25/50 mm material lying down in your vice and use a cutter to clean up the end using the whole side length of said cutter, this should be more successful [side vibration] than your wedge operations as it looks like you are just doing small cuts on the end mills bottom.

Tony

Since you mention a M10 capscrew, presumably that is the nthreadv on your mdrawbar, and in the chuck that bis stuck.

Being MT3, on an older machine, I would have thought that 3/8 BSW would be more likely.

Nowadays, MT3 arbors tend to come with M12 threads.

If you can manage to screw a capscrew into the chuck, in place of the drawbar, as others have suggested, you might be able to use the standard 3MT taper drift, through the slots in the quill to force the chuck ou.

You may even have to apply force using your wedges and the clamp nut, and then follow up with giving a hearty whack with a mallet to the drift against the capscrew.

The combination of a shock load added to a maximum static load MIGHT just break it free. (A suddenly applied load delivers twice the force of a gradually applied one.  .

Howard

Poster does not have a profile. His locality might be good to know - there may be someone local who could help to remove this thing. Even posting a couple of wedges to him might even sort the job might also be a possibility…

Agree, small cuts with the mill end's bottom won't cause much chatter. I'd try a more extreme version of Tony's idea:

In the picture:

• The quill is fully extended
• A large 2-flute cutter is installed and positioned to cut on the side
• The job is a long mild-steel pipe sticking much too much out of the vice and unsupported at the far end.
• A climb cut would be taken towards the vice.*

Don't do anything like this normally! An extremely bad set-up like this will chatter furiously and violently vibrate the chuck and mill head sideways through the taper joint. Drawbars are essential to resist sideways vibration and MT tooling is highly likely to come apart if the drawbar is absent or loose.

Wear eye-protection, keep clear, and be ready to stop the motor the instant the taper comes apart.

Dave

* On second thoughts, probably better to start with the cutter close to the vice and on the other side of the pipe. Then the climb cut would start with mild chatter, which would get worse as the cut moves along the pipe. More control.

This is almost too simple but it worked for me when the MT3 taper on my Warco Minor didn't want to release even after some sharp taps on the draw bar which normally works.

I stood on some steps and tried tapping the draw bar again. Worked a charm. Trying to hit things at head level is a lot harder than hitting them at waist level it would seem.

Graham

Hi Howard,

Thanks for your insight, I believe you are right, measuring the thread on the drawbar gives 9.48mm. I've probably got a 3/8 BSW hanging around with my 'old' lathe somewhere.

I've been away from home for a while so did not have a chance to try any suggestions. I finished milling the wedges, doing a slot with much to high of a speed, 1000rpm and 3/4" cutter, which gave plenty of nasty chatter. I drove them in with my 'big' vice until I couldn't turn the handle anymore with all my body weight. I then gave the end of the spindle a few hearty wacks with a 3lb hammer. No change at all, the taper is still thoroughly stuck.

The quill mechanism felt rough so I thought I'd strip the spindle and see if that gave me any ideas along the way. I've got the quill out without too much hassle, although not sure what to do yet.

I'm in Didcot, Oxfordshire, if anyone is keen to give me a hand in person!