morse taper sticking

The 2mt collet chuck i use in my tom senior mill vertical (knuckle type) head keeps sticking in place. Normally on any mill (usually r8 tools) i have used i slacken off the drawbar a couple of turns and give it a light tap of a brass or copper hammer and the tool pops right out no problem. I have tried the same thing with this morse taper tool and it stubbornly remains in place. If i have to resort to hitting the drawbar harder it knocks the head out of alignment. I have tried leaving the taper dry and with a very thin smear of copper grease but it makes no odds.

Is this something you just have to suffer with morse taper tools, it doesn't happen with the tailstock on the lathe or my pillar drill. Any solutions ?

Hi Ronan,

R8 is a self releasing taper, morse tapers are not. On my milling machine I have a MT 3 taper and never tighten the drawbar much. This usually makes it fairly easy to release the tool shank. I have never had a tool come loose in my milling machine, but sometimes a heavy copper hammer is necessary.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 13/10/2013 05:27:09

Ronan,

Thor s probably correct. You are most likely tightening the draw bar too much. Morse tapers are self gripping and the draw bar should only be nipped up very lightly, just enough to prevent the taper loosing its natural grip. In practice use a short spanner and turn it only a few degrees, do not "crank it up".

The main problem if you have to flog the drawbar is damage to the spindle bearings which take all the force from the hammering.

I have a Tom Senior E type mill and I have made a series of adaptors that fit in the Clarkson chuck rather than in the 2 Morse socket. This means that many jobs can be done without having to remove the Clarkson chuck thus minimising the number of times a drawbar has to be tapped out. These are 3/8" drill chuck, fly cutter arbors, holders for FC3 cutters etc. See my article on the subject in MEW 133.

Eric

event any

Copper grease is rather thick for this application and not providing any advantage. Use thin oil. You could just try an experiment bluing the inside of the taper and inserting your best taper tool to see if there is a poor contact pattern. It might be that a bad taper was rammed in or a 'spin' at some time has resulted in a ridge that now grips the tapers.

I like the idea of Thor with a big copper hammer (apparently named "Mjolnir" but not the practice of "flogging the draw bar". My very basic mill/drill is now fitted with a self-extracting draw bar which I use to remove most tooling; other tools are removed via the slot in the quill with the appropriate tapered drift.

On the Super Seven I use a lever-operated tailstock with resident sliding hammer but I still have to tap the drawbar for headstock tooling.

I never oil or grease MT tapers. There was a suggestion that suspect shanks should be inserted with a paper slip but I have never tried this.

Does anyone know why a standard right bracket becomes a Smiley (as in my recent post in this thread)?

When using the morse taper of any spindle make sure you do not place a cold collet/centre etc. in a warm spindle. removing after use will then become very difficult. Niko.

.

Yes, unfortunately ... it's a "feature"

a quote mark, immediately followed by a closing parenthesis is interpreted as a smiley.

... one of many such.

MichaelG.

Michael Gilligan:

Thanks for enlightening me. It would be helpful if there were a list of these features or, better, the facility to turn them off.

.

We keep trying ... but apparently users on the other MTM forums like the "feature"

MichaelG.

Just insert a space before the close bracket. I know it's poor grammar but it works.

Russell.

Unfortunately there is a long list of keystroke sequences to avoid.

Here are a few

MichaelG.

Michael Gilligan:

Again, thanks. Oddly enough I couldn't see Wink 2 in that list.

Russell Eberhardt:

Thanks for the workaround.

A further thought: the instruction to substitute the unwanted smiley is not executed until the text is posted which is perhaps why some forums incorporate a preview. The preview also gives an opportunity to deploy the blue pencil before going public.

Sounds like that old dichotomy from the working days:

You can either work around a bad system and get the job done. The powers that be will sit back happy that the system works and you'll be "working around" forever.

Or you can work exactly to the bad system, showing it up for what it is, and probably getting it corrected in short order. Short term pain for long term gain.

Bear in mind that this problem is eminently fixable - it can be set up to require smileys to be pulled from the drop-down only. The reason it isn't is because some ("texting-types" on associated websites object to the extra effort of clicking on the smiley icon and insist on entering them from the keyboard)

Edited By OMG on 13/10/2013 17:26:03

No, i have checked the bore of the vertical head and its fine and thankfully made from hardened steel, the taper on the collet chuck is only a few months old and again appears to be hardened steel and nicely finished with no rings or marks. I don't take out the collet chuck often , but occassionally need to if i want to use a boring head or drill etc. I'll use less force tightening the drawbar in future, but i found before that the taper could work its way out while cutting. Somehow i don't think morse taper is ideal at all for this particular task.

Hi Ronan,

If you make a pair of split wedges to fit between the spindle and chuck you will find they will extract your MT much less violently.

Peter.

The use of grease is what makes it come loose. Because it is thick it can't squeeze out of the way easily so either it oozes out in use or you have to use excess force to get the grip.

There was no grease on it when it became loose, thats why i thought it would not matter using a little grease.

Peter's idea of wedges is great, also you may be able to locate a collet chuck with a self ejecting collar, they were made by Clarkson and had an external threaded ring at the back of the chuck that when rotated applied pressure to the spindle end/column so forcing the chuck from the spindle. I did use Mr Thor's copper end on the 3/8" drawbar to remove MT3 tooling from a Victoria mill for many years, I didn't notice any bearing damage but agree that could be a problem.

Emgee