Thread: Morse taper maintainance

THis may be a better/cheaper solution.

CWS Store - Taper Mate | Carroll's Woodcraft Supplies

I would recommend everyone have one of these, especially those who change over live centres or whatever, regularly.

Like a lot of things, maintenance is better than repair.

I did buy the MT2 reamer you mentioned and have used it to clean up the tapers in my lathe but I would suggest only turning the reamer by hand with the lathe off (this obviously applies to the head stock only). With the lathe on there is a distinct danger of over doing it.

The other method I have used (and I mention this knowing full well there will be some who will read this with horror) is to wrap some 400 grit sandpaper around a piece of dowel and lightly rub this inside the taper. The idea of this is to clean any gunk out and perhaps de-burr the taper, so, once again, don't over do it.

And this guy (Cap'n Eddie) has a good video on the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HTq...yer_detailpage

Thanks for that Brendan, further digital examination confirms scoring. Jim's plastic reamer

looks great for gunk but for the extra $10 the chinese ones will take off a couple of thou'.

I will not mention the sandpaper, but Cpt Eddy would not approve Phil

Phil,

I bought a lathe which had a bunch of rusty MT2 bits with it. The MT sockets on the head and tail stock were rusty, with drive center and live center rusted in.

After getting everything apart, I jam chucked a 1/2 inch Jacobs chuck between centers and polished the MT with WD-40 and 400 grit. Then I used it and copious WD-40 to lap the insides of the head and tail stock spindles by hand.

I then polished all the drive and live center MTs. Everything runs nice and true. I keep all my male and female MTs lightly oiled and run a bottle brush into the female and wipe off the male before assembling.

Before buying a taper reamer, you might try 400 grit wrapped around a clean MT, not overlapping, use plenty of WD-40, kerosene, light oil, as lubricant. That will knock off any raised up places from nicks. Give it just a few twists, then clean and try a newish good quality male MT in it. Repeat until there is no wobble.

Clean thoroughly and then lubricate a bare MT as above and twist around in the socket.

That should get everything nice and tight. Maybe even run true.

I do not have sound on my computer so can't hear what Capt. Eddie recommends.

Just buy the reamer - not a huge outlay and worth it's weight in gold to clean up any burring, rust or gunk ACCURATELY! I've only used mine 3 or 4 times but it did a brilliant job in seconds as opposed to some other ghastly methods discussed here so far

Thanks for your input Paul, I should probably have called this " Morse Taper Restoration "

I think the internal scoring is beyond 400 grit and have ordered the reamer set as TiTT recommended

Thanks again for all the advice. Phil

Then when you have reamed it as Paul has said a regular light spray with wd40 and I use an old tooth brush keeps head and tail m2s clean and wipe your m2s before puting them in each time

Ian

If you're buying new, it can save a lot of trouble later by making sure there are no globs of protective grease on the tapers. One speck of grit (foreign or home brand) can cause problems in the future.