You can get “blank” MT tapers which are unmachined and have a drawbar thread.  Easy enough to turn a 60 degree point on it and add a bit of studding at the ejection end.  That way you know that the centre is concentric.

I have bought some with a parallel section near the point. You can grip it in the lathe and drill and tap M6 or 1/4″ and put a bit of screwed rod in it. The shanks are easy to drill and tap, they are not hardened. Found some like this on Ebay just looking for M2 dead centre. They are easy to spot from the pictures.

Martin C

On 4 September 2025 at 20:17 bernard towers Said:

As Martin says but turn the parallel section yourself, or use aNo1 MT centre in a 2 to1 adaptor with a tang!!!!

Kinda prefer MT1 dead centres on my mini lathe anyway,shorter, less in the way of tool(post), not sure you really need anything more robust most of the time on small machine?

A blob of weld on the back end of a centre is sometimes enough.

Be careful before drilling. Some centre shanks are hardened  , some are not. Rub a file over the eris end of your centre to se if it is hard, or soft and drillable. And some are case hardened while others through hardened. If case hardened, you can grind a couple of millimetres off to get through the hard case to the soft, drillable core.