Self ejecting tail stocks tools

After purchasing a Boxford ME10 I have found the centres and other tools that self eject from my Super 7 tail stock no longer eject.

As I cannot see any adjustment that can be made to make this happen. How do you get a dead centre out of the tail stock.

I made an attempt to drill and tap the blank end of a dead centre to fit a allen headed screw to elongate the centre, as it would only take an additional 1/4" on the end of the tools to make them eject.

Have other Boxford users any experience of this problem ?

Other than this small issue I'm very pleased with the ME10 especially as it has a spindle clutch

Have a look at the what did you do today thread over teh last couple of weeks to see how JS solved this on his lathe

I've had centres not want to eject - I've removed them by placing open ended spanner jaws (slightly smaller than max diameter of centre) around the centre, wind back using the handwheel, jacks out the centre when spanner jaws push against tailstock casting.

Hi. I have a Boxford ME10, but all the 2MT items I already had self-eject just as they did with my previous lathe.

It's a nice lathe - you've done well to find one with a clutch (very rare option I believe).

Cheers,

Mike.

Main thing to do before doing anything is to get a standard sleeve or tanged arbour and check where this ejects and if you have more than one machine where it ejects in that.

All too often i read where people cut the tang off and bodge them beyond repair to fit a machine.

Lets look at this logically, arbors are made to a standard and if they don't fit it's the machines fault not the arbor

If it was the arbor it would eject at the same wrong point in every machine.

I just cannot get this way of thinking to alter the wrong part and this mainly from people who would not drill a hole in their machine or even paint it a different colour because the factory didn't do that.

Well i have news for you, factories are not blame free, they do cock up so long short is a good, standard arbor should fit your machine, not the other way round.

I have the same problem on my ME10. Drill chucks and stuff with a tang on the end ejects ok, but the various centres I have dont.

Cant use David Jupps spanner method as the the tail stock spindle does'nt retract into the tailstock casting. Sticks out by about 3/32 or so.

What i did was was machine a ring out of a bit of 1 1/4" steel, bored to slip over the taper (from the small end) and counter bored about 1 1/8" to pass over the tailstock spindle. Hope that descricption makes sense.

Well done that you have a clutch. When I bought my ME10 (new from Boxford) they had stopped offering the clutch as an option.

ARC offers some screw in tanks for items that don't have them.

On this page.

**LINK**

Just drill and tap the ends of things that don't have a tang

John, I thought about that before making my little ring thingy. But had no joy with holding the taper securely while I drilled it.

Regards Barry

Well, I went into the workshop this morning, stripped the tail stock down and found the lead screw nut which is held in place with two small grubs screws had possibly moved about 1/8th" rear ward. I tapped the nut back into the tail stock barred until it was flush with the back of the barrel. The head stock was rebuilt and refitted and if by magic every centre etc. ejects every time.

It's only the end of the barrel screw hitting the back end of the centre. If there is a gap when some are fitted just measure up and toss in a small metal slug to fill the space while you wait for the JS modification articles.

I did the tang to drawbar mod today. I had a nice chuck with integral MT3 taper mount (integral as it uses less headspace in the mill) but wanted the security of a drawbar. So, with JS's suggestion above, and having read an article by Tubal Cain (Tom Walshaw) I set to. I elected to hold the chuck using a dowel held in the chuck's own jaws and a collet in the lathe:

Using a centre in the tang end, I turned a parallel section at the small end of the taper:

With the centre still in place, I set up the fixed steady on the turned portion of the shank:

I then took the chuck out and cut off the tang. I found that the tang was quite hard - a file skidded off it, but a cutting disc in a Dremel lookalike got through:

Then it was just a question of using a carbide tipped tool to gently turn down the end, drill - again, I started with carbide, but eventually reached softer metal - and tap for the drawbar. Except I didn't have a 3/8 whit tap......so that is a job for another day!

However, the method of holding the tang for machining, using its own chuck, worked well. The tang end was harder than I expected though, and i ended up grinding some of the metal away. In hindsight perhaps i should have cut more of the tang off in the first place using the disc.

regards,

John

Edited By John Corden on 05/03/2014 19:55:35

Edited By John Corden on 05/03/2014 19:56:03