Woodturning Tail Centers

Video Transcript

"To hold spindle work in the lathe besides your drive center you need to have a center at the other end of the lathe which is called the tail center. The basic type of tail center is what is called a dead center. All it is is a point within a cup. Nothing moves on this center at all. The problem with it is you're going to develop heat and you get some burning down at this end. The first alternative off of that is what is called a live center. Where it differs is that it is mounted, the cone and the point are mounted in the bearing to allow you to rotate. A variation off of this where you don't want to have, we only want to have one point of contact is what is called a cone center. This was taken from a metal cutting manufacturing. It is a live center and rotates and all it is is just a cone of steel and one variation off of all of these is a cone center but you have an option of mounting different types of points on it depending on the different type of work that you are using."