On my old ML7 the tailstock was not self ejecting. You had to use a rod up the hollow tailstock barrel and tap the end of the morse taper shank to knock it out!

John

My lathe doesn't have a through bore on tailstock to allow 'knocking out' – When I use tools without a tang on the end of the Morse taper, I have to find an alternative way to remove from the tailstock. The thick jaws of a small Whitworth spanner I have can be placed around the exposed part of the Morse taper, then I wind the tailstock back in – the taper gets jacked out of the socket. The spanner jaws (or a custom made 'fork' ) has to be smaller across flats than the largest diameter of the taper to remove (say) a hard centre, if there is a larger 'head' attached to the taper, jaw size is less critical.

Edited By David Jupp on 19/01/2017 08:41:11

Edited By David Jupp on 19/01/2017 08:41:42

A centre that doesn't have a tang usually has a threaded hole for a drawbar – just screw in a short length of studding and it will work. And given that if you do have a tang for self ejecting in an appropriate tailstock, and both the tang and what pushes it will be steel, I don't think one needs to be precious about using a soft bar to eject it.

Not always. My rotating centre has a plain bore about 3/8" diameter and 1/2" long in the plain end. I simply loctited a suitable piece of rod in to act as an ejector.

My plain centres have spanner flats on the outer ends of the taper before the centre proper. Presumably these could be used in conjunction with a suitable spanner and spacer as an extraction device on machines with non self ejecting tailstocks. Or you could make up a simple U shaped tool with a lip to drop in the flats. Potentially handy for some of us but what are the flats really intended for?

Clive.

Emgee

Good suggestion but probably not in this case as mine have a full cone centre in front of the flats, not a partial one as in a half centre. That said I have seen similar with what might be called a 3/4 centre where the narrow side of the centre was midway in size between a half and full centre and the wide side ran right out to the full diameter. Extended centre style so the centre proper was on a cylindrical projection. Piece of grinding machine kit I think. Possibly a conversion from a standard extended centre for a special job.

Clive.

I certainly don't. On my ML7 I use a drawbar lightly nipped up to retain the chuck/arbor in use. To remove the chuck I clamp the tailstock to the bed, remove the drawbar, insert a piece of steel bar and whack it. The steel bar has a flat end and the arbor end has a flat annulus of decent area around the drawbar hole. It ain't likely to do any damage (and in fact hasn't done so in 10 years on three drill chucks).

Its all right using a wedge to remove a stuck drill chuck IF the chuck is permanently mounted on the taper, a lot of chucks with MT shanks are fitted together with a Jacobs taper, so you take your luck and hope that the MT will lit go before the JT, or you will have found another problem to solve.

Ian S C

I see Curtis has not replied to the latest comments. It would be interesting to find out what he did wrong. Getting a 1/2 decent model maker from his local club would sort the problem in seconds. It is likely to be an easy mistake done by a beginner playing with new toys. So much to learn!

As is pressing the buttons on this computer twice!