# Cleaning the Morse Taper



## jeffnreno (Feb 7, 2010)

Hi All

How do you clean out the taper on your lathe?

I was looking inside mine and they are all gunked up.
I took a paper towel and stuffed it through and got a lot of the junk out
but not all.

Jeff


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## johnnycnc (Feb 7, 2010)

Jeff,
First off, be careful. Take a wood dowel, say 3/8" diameter x 12" long.
Wrap fine steel wool around it on one end in the approxiamte shape of the morse taper.
Leave this wad of stuff very much smaller than the taper socket.
Lathe on LOWEST rpm. Be careful, you're on your own. no gloves, etc on, either.
dunk the steel wool creation on a stick in mineral spirits and ream 'er out.
You may need to change the wool, and clean the taper with paper towel between sessions. That should do it. I would avoid sandpaper, or anything too coarse.

There is somewhere that sells a taper cleaner, looks like a plastic fluted reamer.
I couldn't see 20 bucks for it, so never got one.


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## rsmith (Feb 7, 2010)

CSUSA sells a MT cleaner for between 16.00-19.00 depending on size.  Johnny's method works great and is easy enough to do, but as he said just be careful.  Spinning taper vs. hand held anything can be trouble


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## lane223 (Feb 8, 2010)

I've taken half a Scotch-Brite pad and stuffed it into the taper while running the lathe at slow speed.


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## Wildman (Feb 8, 2010)

I use one of those green morse taper cleaners, but found shot gun bore brush mounted on a cleaning rod works best.  You can use cleaning solvent if you want.


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## PenMan1 (Feb 10, 2010)

12 guage shotgun "bore runner" cotton pad with DNA, or Acetone will clean her up very nicely.


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## Fred (Feb 11, 2010)

Using the steel wool on the dowel is an excellent idea, but do as suggested and turn slowly just in case the wool 'catches.' The shotgun brush is also a great suggestion as long as you have one handy. The Scotchbrite pads also do great and are fairly easy to come across in the cleaning section of SWMBO cabinets ... better yet, get your own from the grocery store and stay out of trouble with the Little Lady of the house.

Be sure to clean all those morse tapers on the mandrels, etc. A light coat of WD-40 is also in order afterwards on all metal surfaces.


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## KD5NRH (Feb 11, 2010)

Fred said:


> The shotgun brush is also a great suggestion as long as you have one handy.



If you don't, WalMart usually has some sort of small shotgun cleaning kit for $10 or so, which generally includes some solvent and a light oil.


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## Wildman (Feb 11, 2010)

I no longer use lathe power when cleaning with bore brush and cleaning rod.


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## Rifleman1776 (Feb 11, 2010)

I use paper towels with WD-40.
I don't see how those plastic MT cleaner tools can be effective.
Personally, I would not use power with any of the other methods suggested.
The real key to clean, IMHO, is prevention. Frequent cleaning with the paper towel and WD-40, or another solvent/lubricant, is recommended. Don't let it get real gunky in the first place.


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## jeffnreno (Feb 13, 2010)

Thanks for all the great responses.   
I've got the steel wool on hand so I'll give that a try.
But a bore brush sounds good to.


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