Hello Paul,

You've received a number of good suggestions, all of which could be the problem.
I suspect however from what you say that the headstock is not locked down in
perfect alignment with the tailstock. I've used rotating head lathes for several
years and finally settled for a double ended Morse Taper to ensure the centering
of the lathe headstock and tailstock. When you turn between centers, it does not
matter if there is some misalignment between the tailstock and the headstock.
Remounting the turned wood into a chuck seldom mounts perfectly as several have
stated because the wood fibers compress differently at different locations on
the piece of wood. The result can throw you out of alignment. Your problem is
not really a newby problem. It is just that experienced turners expect to have
the problem and have learned ways to compensate.

If the misalignment is not too great, you can turn on the lathe before bringing
the drill up to the wood. Allow the wood to self center the drill and then lock
down the tailstock. If the offset is too large for this compensation, take a
skew chisel laying on its side and make a "V" indention in the wood large enough
to accept the end of the drill. This "V" indention will now be exactly on the
center of rotation. Now move the tailstock with the drill mounted in until the
drill aligns in this new "V" and then lock it down. Drill your hole and you
should be on center. All of this assumes, however, that you have made sure your
headstock and tailstock are in alignment before you mount the wood in the chuck.

Good luck, but don't feel this is a newby problem. Only the most expensive
lathes have perfectly aligned headstock/tailstock. With more experience you
learn how to overcome the problem with lesser quality equipment.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com/

In article , Paul
Kierstead says...

Ah, more newbie question for y'all. I have greatly appreciated the help
so far.

So far in my experiments, I frequently do this:

1) Turn something rough to round between centers using a spur and live
center
2) Cut a tenon on the head end using a parting tool
3) Remove spur center and replace with Talon
4) Take blank and put it in the Talon, pressing the tenon shoulder
against the jaws
5) Mount Drill chuck (with a drill) in tailstock
6) Drill a hole in blank

In (5) I would expect the "hole" from the live center in the blank to
line up quite close to the drill bit tip, assuming everything runs true.
It doesn't; the drill bit is always off center. The blank runs
*reasonably* true in this scenerio, but not perfectly. The bit is always
off center in the same direction it seems. Of course, with small bits,
this results in the bit flexing toward the little hole the live center
made and gives you a slightly oversized hole. It is a cheap lathe (a
Craftex from busy bee tools, something like Grizzly in the US).

Where am I/lathe/combo going wrong, and what would I do to get
everything lined up better?

PK

PS: The lathe has a rotating head; this is a cause of trouble, as even
tightened down strongly it seems to be able to be moved by a good bump,
i.e. catch. Could this be a cause of trouble? How would one fix it,
outside of a welder?