Long nose live center

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LeChuck

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Hello,

Anyone has a good MT3 long nose live center that they are happy with, has lasted, and can recommend?

I bought this one from Shars:

www.shars.com

3 MT Morse Taper Long Nose High Speed Medium Duty CNC Live Center

www.shars.com www.shars.com

I'm having to return it because it started dragging after just a few uses turning down resin blanks to diameter and a couple blanks just sheared off of my stebcenter, as the live center couldn't handle 1000rpm anymore. I switched back to the cheaper one I had bought from PM and it works fine, but would like something that lets me get closer, and give more clearance away from the tailstock.

I don't want to get another copy of the same one.
 
That looks pretty good, even though pricey. I'll check them out. Wish they had dimensions on there.
 
I do have a couple suggestions, but you better be sitting down when you look at the prices.

Royal makes a "high precision" series, but they refer to the long nose style as CNC centers. MSC carries them for a healthy price:

Royal Products - MT3 Taper Shank, 1-3/4" Head Diam 1,735 Lb Capacity Live Center - 00102335 - MSC Industrial Supply (mscdirect.com)

Royal is in my opinion either the top of the line or very close to it. They also make a line called Value Turn. This line is about half the cost of their high precision series, but they're still not cheap. I'm not sure if they make a long nose style in that line.

As mentioned Skoda also makes good centers. I have both brands in the MT2 and MT3 sizes, however only the MT3 Royal has the extended nose. All the others have the standard nose.
 
LeChuck said:
That looks pretty good, even though pricey. I'll check them out. Wish they had dimensions on there.
Click to expand...

If you look up their catalog they have some dimensions.
The problem with live centers is that you can buy cheap or you can buy good. The Chinese stuff always seems to
be a coin toss quality wise, as you learned. :)
 
I like the nose shape on the Royal, but that price is too high for my needs. I might try the Skoda. I'm not finding a precise dimension on the tip size, other than the largest diameter of the cone is 0.75 inch from their catalog, but it looks like that might work.

I have several live centers on my wood lathe. A Jet, a OneWay, a cheap 60 degree no name one, and another cheap one that's been working fine. On the metal lathe I have the one I paid $39 for from PM, and this Shars, and the Shars is the only one of them all that's stopped turning smoothly, and after just a handful of uses.

I don't want to spend a fortune, but have something that's pretty good, and continues to be pretty good for a good while. Don't want to be ruining sticks of resin. It's enough of a pain when I made it myself, but even worse if it happens on a vintage one that I bought from overseas and have an order waiting.
 
If you want a Chinese approximation of a tool, you'll get Chinese quality. If you want the real-deal version of the tool used in production environments, you had better be sitting down when you read the price. If you know which one you need, you'll make the choice that puts you ahead. For some, that's a Chi-tool. For those that know the tool is key to the desired outcome, the pill is much easier to swallow.
 
I just received the nearly $300 Skoda mentioned above. I'm sad but not surprised to see that this seems overrated, like most things these days. Out of the box, it's just about as tight as the Shars was when I returned it. My heart sank when I took it out and tried. Then I saw the tiny little manual that says it has to run for a few minutes to warm up and loosen the lubricant. I did that, ran it at 1100RPM for a few minutes holding on to a piece of brass and felt it get warm. It didn't change its tightness even by a bit, no difference I could feel. It's probably acceptable for metal but I can't really trust it to a piece of resin for my use as it would risk tearing out and throwing it off during a cut. Maybe I need to run it faster and try to get it *really* hot so I'll try that later, but I'm not hopeful. It also has some rub that I can feel turning by hand.

So far, the $39 Chinese one from PM is the one that just works smoothly, just not with an extended nose.
 
Hmmm, this may have been ignorance on my part. I went to try again because I couldn't leave it alone and I tried turning it while applying force on the nose, and it turns more freely, so it looks like this is supposed to turn freely under load...Will see when I try turning down a stick of resin.

I wonder which screw to remove in order to add lubricant when needed.
 
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