MT 6 1/2 One Piece Dead Center

[erikmannie]

I am making some 6 1/2 Morse Taper one-piece dead centers for my PM-1660TL lathe.

Here is part of the way through the first one, which is cold rolled 1018 steel:

 

[erikmannie]

I finished the 60° taper cut. I used the compound for this.

 

[erikmannie]

Parting it:

 

[erikmannie]

Here it is, on the right:

 

[erikmannie]

And at the bottom:

 

[erikmannie]

I am going to make another one tomorrow out of 4140 prehard.

I learned some lessons from the first one:

(1) all of the work can be done in one chucking!

(2) I almost made this one too short. There was nothing gained by starting with a short workpiece.

(3) the way I went about getting the angle on the one above was not scientific. I cut an angle that was purposely too small, & then I gradually increased the angle until I got it.

(4) I have a plan to use a dial indicator to set the angle perfectly. This is something that I saw on YouTube.

(5) I had to rush at the end because I didn’t want to leave it chucked in overnight. I didn’t like the way that I had this one chucked up. I was only using half the depth of the jaws. I felt like this might damage my chuck if I left it in there overnight.

 

[ddickey]

Why not put the MT6.5 in the spindle and finish the point? That way you'd have zero runout. Rough it in the chuck and finish in the spindle.

 

[tq60]

Turn between centers so no parting

When taper is bone insert and make point

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[erikmannie]

Really great tips! I am going to use both those tips starting now with the 4140 prehard.

 

[ttabbal]

I played with this method a little and found it pretty easy to use.