by Fred Connell

The taper inside the spindle and tail stock of your wood lathe is called a Morris Taper (MT). There are several standard sizes of Morris Taper. The MT is used to hold various devices with the same MT to the end of your spindle or tail stock. Examples of devices with MT tapers are live and dead centers, collet chucks, drill chucks and custom chucks. All of my wood lathes have a MT-2 taper in both the headstock and tail stock.

A draw bar for your wood lathe is handy to keep the various Morris Taper (MT)devices attached to the lathe spindle or the tail stock . Some lathes do not have a draw bar hole in the tail stock but all have a draw bar hole through the spindle.

First you have to determine the female thread in your Morris Taper chucking device. If you have made your own MT chuck you can make the draw bar thread whatever you want. I like to use the Cabarrus Standard draw bar thread of 1/4"x20 threads per inch. You do not need a larger draw bar unless the thread in your chucking device is already tapped to a larger thread.

   I use a 1" outside diameter MT-2 adapter to hold the MT device for the drilling and tapping of the draw bar thread. Each size female thread requires a specific drill size. For instance a 1/4"x20 tpi thread requires a #7 size drill bit. You could use a 13/64" bit as it would only be 0.003 larger the #7 size bit. Use of a cutting oil while drilling metal will greatly prolong the life of your drill bit. Use an aliment pin in your drill press to keep the tap aligned with the hole as you tap the hole. The hand tap should be turned 1/4 turn before it is reversed for a 1/4 turn to break the chip. Then, turn it another 1/4 turn and reverse as above. Use tapping oil on the tap if you are tapping metal.

If your chuck is wood you will not use tapping oil. After you completely tap the wood chuck for the draw bar and remove the tap, soak the wood threads with thin CA glue. Let the glue dry and re-tap the threads. Be careful to start the tap aligned in the same threads you first tapped. This CA glue reinforced wood thread will be very strong and durable.

You can purchase a piece of 1/4"x20 tpi threaded rod to use for your draw bar. You will need to cut it to length with a hacksaw and clean up the threads of the cut end with a small triangle file.

Get a 1/4" washer and 1/4"x20 tpi nut to complete your draw bar. Now, your Morris Taper devices cannot vibrate loose.