Further Adventures in Drilling

[tigercasual]

Okay, I may have gotten a little closer in figuring out why I'm having such issues drilling on my lathe. First: as improvements were made on my lathe, the drilling became much more accurate. So much better that I was just about ready to say that I had my problem solved when this happened....

The first few stems that I drilled came out fine. As I moved along, however, I noticed that the quality of drilling was taking a turn for the worse. This struck me as perplexing, but I decided to soldier forward... that was when I think that I stumbled upon my problem. As I was pulling the tailstock back in order to clear out the wood shavings, the head of my chuck pulled free from the taper; this led me to believe that as I was drilling, the chuck had slowly become loose- making for more and more inaccurate drilling.

So here's my question/questions: Is there a standard way to secure the chuck onto the taper, or is there a better chuck out there that actually affixes to the taper, or is this just a matter of technique?

Thanks,
Danny

[RadDavis]

Sounds like you may be cranking the chuck back too far, and the taper is letting go. If this is the case then you need to determine where the taper lets go , and don't crank it back that far when you're drilling.

Rad

[Sasquatch]

That's my thought too - the autoeject is at play?

[tigercasual]

I'm not actually cranking the chuck. I have it set in place and I'm sliding the tailstock back and forth- ala Tyler's video.

Cheers,
Danny

[KurtHuhn]

The tapers should not let go easily. If that's the case, I'm tempted to say that your chuck's taper is incorrect. However, that doesn't rule out operator error either.

Do yourself a favor, and try using just the hand crank. Leave the tailstock tightened down where it is, and just crank the handwheel. See if this solves your problem.

[Sawdust]

Hi tigercasual,
Something else you could check is the alignment between the headstock and tailstock. My lathe is made so you can move the headstock to different locations on the bed, so I end up doing this quite a bit. What I do is to mount a 3 jaw chuck on the headstock and a drill chuck on the tailstock. Loosen both headstock & tailstock. Mount a piece of 1/2" rod in the drill chuck and move it as close to the 3 jaw as you can. Then tighten the 3 jaw on the rod. Snub down the tailstock, then tighten your headstock. The whole process takes less time to do than to describe. If that's not your problem, at least you have ruled it out.

Just a thought,
Jim

[taharris]

Just to be clear you are saying that the Jacob's chuck that you have mounted in your tail stock is loosening as you move the tail stock in and out to complete the hole.

If you are putting your Jacob's chuck into the MT correctly, this should not happen. Insert the chuck into the MT and give it a slight 1/8 to 1/4 turn to cinch it in. Don't be afraid to muscle it a little, although you shouldn't have to. After drilling you should not be able to remove it from the MT by hand. You should have to use the hand crank to eject it.

If you find that it is loose even after drilling then there is a problem with your MT. Check it to see that it is clean and free of corrosion. Maybe run a little fine emery cloth on the MT carefully.