Cue Repair Lathe

Dead center is to chuck up and hold your thread area of a cue shaft or the pin (granted IF it has a relief hole at the top of the pin) other wise you will need to use a cue repair man joint kit ( comes in all cue pin sizes or you can also use a joint protector ) But the center is best because it is a (center meaning the rotation will not run out = NO WOBBLE.) The center will make it dead straight between your chuck and rear bed stock, granted if your set up is all plum and level.

The live center is typically used to hold the rear end of the cue on the rear stock and is capable of rotating ( spinning while the lathe is rotating )... For more details ask in the cue makers section. Or just look it up on google or wiki.

Hope this helps but... If your going to get a lathe or just got one you should have already known this or looked this up, a typical owners manuel that comes with a lathe will explain each thing as well. :thumbup:

No worries though best of luck in your journey

-Drew
 
scary.......................

but

dead center in headstock drives the workpiece
live center in tailstock allows workpiece to rotate freely
 
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scary.......................

but

dead center in headstock drives the workpiece
live center in tailstock allows workpiece to rotate freely

No doubt!

Please go find some basic lathe instruction.

You could hurt yourself or some one else before you know it.


Royce
 
One bit of advise...always be aware of the spinning lathe chuck jaws:yikes: They're pretty painful if your fingers/knuckles come in contact with them:o I don't understand why the jaw ends don't have a full radius on them. Any little burr acts like a spinning knife, or a flying hammer. When doing tip repairs your left hand can get pretty close to the rotating chuck. A person I know has some nasty wounds from them:shakehead: And this is on one of the low power sewing machine motor lathes. My advise would be to spend a lot time on youtube watching videos on basic lathe operation and the one's specifically on cue repair.
 
Rotating equipment is very dangerous. Please get on YouTube and watch a lot of videos concerning lathe safety.
There are also plenty of videos concerning live and dead center usage as well as lathe dogs. Do a bunch of research and study before you attempt anything on your lathe and always wear some form of eye protection at a minimum. No loose hair or clothing either.
Good luck !
 
Rotating equipment is very dangerous. Please get on YouTube and watch a lot of videos concerning lathe safety.
There are also plenty of videos concerning live and dead center usage as well as lathe dogs. Do a bunch of research and study before you attempt anything on your lathe and always wear some form of eye protection at a minimum. No loose hair or clothing either.
Good luck !

Understand that everyone here is happy for you to have found a good deal and sometimes the good deals don't hang around long enough to do the proper training and background investigation, so you've got to grab it.
In addition to all the above, you should also search Google and YouTube for lathe and tablesaw accidents. The pictures will be horrible, but hopefully they will give you the respect for your new tool that it deserves.
Gary <-- survivor of a close call with a tablesaw
 
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You must understand that the lathe is just the down payment on the tremendous amount of money you will spend to make a decent cue.

Cuemakers that have been doing it for years tend to forget that they also were once right where you are.
They knew nothing.
Some were lucky and found a local cue maker willing to tutor them.
Others studied what materials were available made friends with other cue makers and learned by trial and error.
I dont believe there has ever been one cue maker that learned the trade without some help from someone along the way.

There is no reason YOU should need to suffer the mistakes others have already made.
Learn from their mistakes not from yours whenever possible.
Take advantage of those willing to help and share knowledge with you.

If you are really serious about learning about cue making then the FIRST book you should buy is the one written by Chris Hightower.
www.cuesmith.com

After reading thru it and still want to be a cue maker you should buy a set of CD's so you can see the processes and how the equipment is set up.
After that you will have enough information to make an intelligent decision about what equipment you will need to do what you want.
You might even decide that cue making is just not for you ... if that is the case ... you just saved yourself a lot of frustration and a ton of money!

If after you have read Chris Hightowers book and watched a few videos you will be able to ask questions here specific to the process in question.

Willee
 
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Lathe

Just gonna do tips and clean up some shafts. Maby fix some house cues at the American Legion. Nothing too tuff.
 
Just gonna do tips and clean up some shafts. Maby fix some house cues at the American Legion. Nothing too tuff.


It's an addiction! It will suck you in slowly. It starts with just wanting to do tips and ferrules.

Getting Mr. High towers book is a really good idea. It's easy to sell for almost what you paid for when you are done.

Larry
 
Dead Center usually means it is a pointed center that is not inside a free spinning bearing. A Live Center is either a pointed, convcaved or other type of center that free spins inside a bearing. The dead center is normally used to spin or drive a piece of wood or cue part that is being cut on a lathe. The live center normally holds the other end of the workpiece. Live centers are also used to hold the tip end of the shaft as in the concaved live center.
 
I am a newbie as well as Larry can tell you and it is a never ending expenditure but the Hightower book is worth the money.
 
Tell me about it Clay. If I have told this story once, I have told it 20 times. That hot Summer day, when I was enjoying the coolness of the basement shop, and figured it a good idea to do a tip without a shirt one.

And it took awhile before my left nipple forgave me for getting it tweaked on a chuck jaw.

On a rare occasion, I have also gotten one of my knuckles smacked, harder than any ole Nun could do with a yard stick.

I now position myself a tad differently when cutting a tip.

Even the small repair lathes have the ability to make you regret not following basic safety rules around power tools. Let your guard down, and get bit.

I would never operate anything, from a hammer to an electric drill, without safety glasses on. Anything can chip and send a piece into an eye, for a start.

And I don't believe that I would like the nick name, One Eye Terry, muchly.

There are basic safety rules when handling fire arms. I like to treat any piece of equipment with about the same amount of regard. As if it were loaded.
 
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