You guys need to get your facts straight. A live centre is the centre which is mounted in the headstock of the lathe and used to drive stock between centres! They are useful and very easy to make up by sticking stock in a chuck and turning a 60 deg point. Please note, this is just a friendly poke fun at the way english has morphed over the years when saying one thing now means something else)
Now a Ball Bearing Dead Centre is a must have for any lathe when work is being turned that overhangs the chuck more that 1-1/2 x the diameter of the stock. I know, somewhere over the years, something got fouled up in our language and these handy devices started getting called Live Centres.
Every lathe I have had, has always had one of these centres, often more than one. The Logan had a nice little Skoda, extremly well made, and just the cats meow! This would be an idea centre for the SB 9A! They are pricey, but very worth it. I had first bought a Busy Bee import, much like the US Horrible Fright ones and after one use, took it back, felt like it was packed with gravel.
When I upgraded the Logan to the Gosan 1440V, I figured I would just put a MT2 x MT3 sleeve on the Skoda and be done with it. Nope, the saddle is so wide on the Gosan, I ended up having to get a Riten Long Nose with the MT3 shank. Very nice centre, and that long thin point allows tooling to get in.
Then there are the Bull Nose Ball Bearing Centres for large work, and the Spider Bearing centres for holding insides of tubing. And my second favourite Ball Bearing Centre is the Bison 3 Jaw Chuck Bearing Centre. Great for grabbing shafts that do not have or can not have a centre hole.
I even have a few dead centres, and half centres and WHU, but they rarely ever get used as the speed range on them is so low and you are constanly having to lube them or they will burrn up the piece that is being turned from the heat and pressure.
Now if you guys are going to insist on calling them Live Centres, I will not stop you.
Walter
