I feel kind of silly asking this but, I decided to make my first sphere and first needed to make a cup chuck for the headstock and a drilled and tapped cup to thread onto my oneway live center. MT2 cup chuck, no problem. Tailstock cup bumper, not so much. I'm having a hell of a time getting a true centered hole. I'll explain my process and hopefully someone can educate me on what I'm doing wrong or what's wrong with my lathe.
* put tenons on each end of a short chunk of wood and true it up.
* jacobs chuck in tailstock and drill hole and cut threads to match live center.
*reverse wood (drilled hole is now at my chuck) and shape the threaded cup chuck
*thread onto tailstock
The problem is, it's never true. there is always some offset between the threaded hole and the cup and it doesn't run true.
I've checked tail/headstock alignment by touching points and locking everything down. It's very very close but not exact. If it's not locked down my tailstock arm wiggles a bit. More than I would assume it should. So, when I drill, my bit always ends up off of center as I'm turning the tailstock wheel to advance the bit. It becomes more obvious the deeper I drill. If I lock it all down it can't be advanced.
Am I missing something completely obvious or is my lathe borked? My bits aren't bent and are sharp. Honestly I've experienced centering problems often but chalked it up to ignorance and newness to the hobby. Everytime I reverse a piece it needs to be re-trued which i understand is somewhat normal (especially with green wood).
I have no idea why making a sphere is so completely consuming to me currently, but, it is...
Thanks in advance
* put tenons on each end of a short chunk of wood and true it up.
* jacobs chuck in tailstock and drill hole and cut threads to match live center.
*reverse wood (drilled hole is now at my chuck) and shape the threaded cup chuck
*thread onto tailstock
The problem is, it's never true. there is always some offset between the threaded hole and the cup and it doesn't run true.
I've checked tail/headstock alignment by touching points and locking everything down. It's very very close but not exact. If it's not locked down my tailstock arm wiggles a bit. More than I would assume it should. So, when I drill, my bit always ends up off of center as I'm turning the tailstock wheel to advance the bit. It becomes more obvious the deeper I drill. If I lock it all down it can't be advanced.
Am I missing something completely obvious or is my lathe borked? My bits aren't bent and are sharp. Honestly I've experienced centering problems often but chalked it up to ignorance and newness to the hobby. Everytime I reverse a piece it needs to be re-trued which i understand is somewhat normal (especially with green wood).
I have no idea why making a sphere is so completely consuming to me currently, but, it is...
Thanks in advance