Lathe purchase or acquisition.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Against what all the Robust and Oneway owners think of their steel bed lathes, and I bet they will not trade their lathes agains any of the Chinese lumps of cast iron, the mayor reason these are bought is for the $$$ it cost to get a quality steel bed lathe, my opinion

 

[hockenbery]

I've drilled many hundreds of pieces with my Powermatic 3520b and have never had anything come loose in my #2 taper.

Your experience is much different from mine
Whenever I use a Jacob’s chuck in tailstock with a #2 taper I hold onto the chuck when I back it out.
If I don’t it seems about 50/50 as to whether the taper gets loose.
Deeper the hole the more likely to pull out for me.

 

[robo hippy]

One of the decisions on which lathe to buy is do you want a long bed or short bed lathe. The sliding headstocks, or the pivoting ones allow you to take a long bed lathe and make it a short bed lathe. This is very handy for bowl turning. That was the reason I picked up a 3520A when they first were available. The Oneway is a long bed lathe. You can turn bowls outboard on it though. Main reason for me to avoid the long bed lathes is I don't care for turning bowls on a long bed lathe set up. You have to hold your arms out away from your body, or bend over, neither of which I like. Slide the headstock down to the end of the lathe and you can stand up straight, and keep your arms in close to your body.

robo hippy

 

[hockenbery]

The Oneway is a long bed lathe.

But it has an available 17” bed That is a shortbed you can stand in front of
Mounted on the outboard it is a lot less steps to move a bowl started between center to the outboard for hollowing than moving the headstock.
Swing the control pendant. Flip the reverse switch. Mount the bowl in the chuck. Start hollowing.

 

[GRJensen]

Yes and I know I'm lucky to have a wife who deals with my love of woodturning.

My wife can't figure out why I need 2 lathes ... but I can't figure out why she needs 6 sewing machines!

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

Your experience is much different from mine
Whenever I use a Jacob’s chuck in tailstock with a #2 taper I hold onto the chuck when I back it out.
If I don’t it seems about 50/50 as to whether the taper gets loose.
Deeper the hole the more likely to pull out for me.

There's a fairly simple fix for this problem. Grind what's known as a whistle grind on the side of the Morse taper. Then tap a hole through the side of your quill. Use a set screw to press on the ground area of the Morse taper.

If it happens the quill's wall thickness isn't enough for the set screw put a collar around the outer end of your quill and tap through that. Of course this will lessen your quill travel, but still might be worth not having the Morse come loose. A Morse taper rattling around loose in its socket can damage the interior finish.

I had all of my production drill presses modified this way. When we used reversing tapping heads having the head fall out on withdrawal was a problem.

 

[john lucas]

I'm with Bill. I've never had a problem with #2 morse taper.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

I'm with Bill. I've never had a problem with #2 morse taper.

But, have you had applications where there's a significant force required to back out the quill?

 

[john lucas]

Yes. I've drilled a fair amount with all drill sizes and even got drills stuck. I buy used drill bits in the larger sizes that have #2 morse tapers. I have had one of those come loose but the tapers were pitted with rust and even though I cleaned them thoroughly they simply arent perfect so I dont think it was the size of the taper thst caused that. My metal lathe has #3 taper and i have had one of those come loose when a drill got hung up drilling metal but that is obviously much more difficult than drilling wood.