The Home Machinist!

I don't have a manual for my machine .. so .. there are some simple things I don't know
how to do.

Right now I am trying to figure out how to hold the mill spindle while tightening the draw bar.

Is there a lock/brake .. or .. a fancy wrench that holds the spindle spline at the top of
the machine. My endmills pull out of the collets sometimes.

For generic info .. its an MT3 taper and a standard collet.

I bought one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/280822405764

The fellow makes them himself, I think. It works great. Prior to that, I used and adjustable wrench across the flats and then made a spring-loaded pin to engage the spline. Neither was entirely satisfactory.

I can't guarantee that it will fit your shopmaster, but most of these machines all have the same size spline shaft. I won't be home again until Monday so I can't give you measurements on mine just now, but you could e-mail him and ask.

ahhhh .. that is perfect .. thanks

just out of curiosity I wonder what the manual wants you to do. Actually .. knowing that
there wasn't a provision designed into the machine ... makes me want to make one.
Like a lever or button to lock the drive pulley .. whatever ..

anyways .. thanks again

I don't know about your Shopmaster, but my manual does not speak to the issue at all. Looking at Grizzly's on-line manuals, the G9729 manual also ignores it, only cautioning against overtightening since removal will be difficult. The G4791 manual has an interesting drawbar, with a nut on the top of the drawbar. The drawbar is threaded into the tool by hand then it can be held with a wrench while the nut is tightened with another wrench.

The over-tightening thing is a very good point with the Morse Taper. MT is a shallower taper that does not release as readily as, say, R8.

mikeamick,

Manuals are available at link below.

http://shoptask.com/shoptask/shop/index ... tion_id=21

Ken.

_________________
One must remember.
The best learning experiences come from
working with the older Masters.
Ken.

My manual did not mention the issue. I find that I can grab the belt going to the spindle with my left hand (holding both the front and back sides) and that is enough to hold the spindle. My ceiling is too low to allow for the top belt enclosue box so I have removed it. That makes the belts readily accessible.

Tom

I just grab the Weldon tool holder or the chuck with one hand and wrench with the other. That gets it as tight as it needs to be. I have never seen any sign of slippage doing that. It doesn't take much force to get an M3 taper to seat and lock up. I do have a couple M3 collets that don't stick out far enough to grab. I just use a rag and a pair of pliers on the quill to tighten those. It drawbar doesn't need to be tight enough to risk scaring the quill with the pliers. You will have whack the drawbar with a soft hammer to remove the toolholder even after only tightening it only your hands. Remember to disengage the fine feed gear on the quill before you hit the drawbaw so that you don't break the rack teeth on the quill.

The quill wrench in the eBay listing won't work on my machine because it won't came off past the drawbar nut at the top of quill.

Ummm, you do know that thing doubles as a lathe, right?

Torch,
No part of quill on my shoptask 2000 is part of the lathe. If I use a boxend type wrench like the one shown the eBay listing to hold the quill while I tighten the drawbar nut then I won't be able to remove the wrench. It won't come past the factory supplied stepped washer and nut. You may be thinking of a Shopsmith woodworking machine. The quill assembly is used as the lathe headstock on those.
Joe

I meant you could put the draw bar in the lathe and turn down the flange enough to clear the wrench. I have never been adverse to modifying my machine as required to make it work better for me.

Hand tight, (as tight as I can get with a wrench on one and and the other end in my hand), is as tight as the drawbars need to be. The drawbar pulls the morse taper tool in to the socket where it is held and driven by friction. There is no provision for a drawbar or a tanged arbor in the tailstock ram and I have had no problems with it. I give the end of chuck a light tap with a brass hammer to seat it and it does not slip. I don't use the drawbar in lathe headstock unless I'm using a mill in a weldon holder or a MT3 collet. I do sometimes use the my Drill chuck for work holding for small parts and it has never loosened in the socket without a drawbar.

I think the OP's issue wasn't that the collet came loose from the MT3 spindle, but that the mill came loose from the collet. If he was using an endmill holder with a weldon shank set screw, hand tight would probably be fine, but he needs to tighten it more so that the collet grips the endmill sufficiently.

The obvious answer is to use an endmill holder or an ER collet, but holding the endmill directly in the spindle with a collet provides more clearance for use with tall workpieces. Until someone comes up with a knee for the 3-in-1 format, we have to have a variety of tool holders to suit the occasion.

For the record, this is one reason why I swapped out my original MT3 mill spindle for an R8 spindle (like I said, I've never been shy about modifying the machine so it works better for me). I normally use an ER-40 collet chuck, which descends from the spindle about the same depth as a drill chuck. That way I can swap from milling to drilling without having to re-index the column. But I have some R8 collets as well, for just such an emergency.