[How do I?] How do I clean up a female taper?

[series8217]

While investigating excessive runout on my new-to-me but old-to-the world drill press, I noticed some runs of epoxy around the top of the chuck's taper adapter.... Removing the chuck was not fun but I eventually got it to release. Some previous operator had slathered the taper in epoxy then stuffed it into the spindle. I was able to clean up the male taper with acetone, a plastic scraper and a brass brush. However, I dont have any tools that can fit in the female taper in the spindle other than steel picks, and I don't want to mess up the taper.

How do I safely clean up the inside of the taper? Is there a reamer or hone for this?

Also once I've cleaned it up how do I check it?

 

[extropic]

I see this is your first post.
Welcome to H-M.

The first thing I would want to do, based on the situation you described, is to check the runout of the spindle taper. I've seen bent DP spindles before.

To aid cleaning up your chuck, you can buy a stainless bristle tube brush (try McMaster-Carr) or a brass rifle/shogun bore cleaning brush of a suitable size should be easy enough to find.

Edit: I misunderstood the problem last night.

 

[extropic]

snip>

How do I safely clean up the inside of the taper? Is there a reamer or hone for this?

Also once I've cleaned it up how do I check it?

I have lapped the female taper of a drill chuck in the following manor. I cut a crescent shaped piece of micro abrasive lapping film (with PSA adhesive back). 30 micron aluminum oxide cuts pretty well and finer grits can be used according how fine a finish you want. Clean the spindle taper with Acetone and apply the lapping film to cover the taper completely (do not overlap the film) where the chuck mates. Set the DP to it's lowest RPM and squirt the lapping film and chuck taper with WD-40. Hold the chuck securely and present it to the spinning spindle. Keep the joint wet with WD-40 to help keep the lapping film from loading up. Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied with the fit and finish.

Lapping the chuck taper as I've described will get you a good matching/mating taper. What do you want to check?

Edit: I misunderstood your problem last night

 

[darkzero]

If it's not some sort of speciality epoxy & just common epoxy from a hardware store (chances are high that it is) just heat it. No need for a reamer or abrasives. It will soften up & you should be able to scrape it out with a wooden dowel or some sort of plastic stick. I'd just use a bamboo chopstick. Sand a sharp edge on the chopstick if needed.

You don't need to get it very hot & you don't want to, just uncomfortable to touch should be good enough. The epoxy will start smelling when it's hot enough. Epoxy likes a rough surface to hold, hopefully the previous owner didn't scuff up the taper before using the epoxy. If the surface is still smooth inside the epoxy should come out even easier.

And hopefully the PO used epoxy cause they simply did not know how to properly seat the arbor in the taper. If that wasn't the case & the taper was damaged causing it not to hold well then that's gonna require a reamer if salvageable. I've never heard of anyone using epoxy in a morse taper (I'm assuming MT since you mentioned female taper spindle) before so hopefully the reason for it is the former.

 

[SLK001]

+1 on using heat.

Also, there are taper reamers that you can use. I'm assuming (boldly) that your taper is a Morse #3, but you'll have to do some measuring to tell us what it really is. You probably have other problems with your spindle (or your arbor), because a Morse taper is supposed to be a self-holding taper. Since someone in the past felt the need to epoxy the arbor in place, it's likely that the arbor and the socket do not properly match.

 

[WobblyHand]

You probably have other problems with your spindle (or your arbor), because a Morse taper is supposed to be a self-holding taper. Since someone in the past felt the need to epoxy the arbor in place, it's likely that the arbor and the socket do not properly match.

Do check both female and male tapers. Have experienced mismatched tapers, they don't hold correctly. Matched tapers hold together amazingly well.

 

[Nutfarmer]

To check the fit of the taper use a thin coat of Prussian blue on the male part after it’s cleaned up. You can see how the fit is by where the blue is rubbed off. If the female tapper is off it can usually be cleaned up with a tapper reamer of the proper size. Using a male tapper of known quality can tell you which part of the two mating pieces are out.

 

[woodchucker]

I'm of the belief that whoever did this did not know what they were doing. Maybe there was galling and they wanted to smooth it out , maybe they grinded the galling first.

Anyway, I believe the best way is to take a reamer and ream it. If it is what I suspect, then you will be left with a lot of metal, and the epoxy will only occupy the low areas. There was never a need to add the epoxy, it was not going to help the situation, at least in my mind. Tapers are different than plain bores. A plain bore might get fixed with epoxy.. a taper will not.

 

[benmychree]

A reamer could be used to remove burrs, if a substantial amount of metal is removed, the adaptor will bottom out in the bottom of the bore or the tang slot, which would require more work to overcome. Bottoming out would cause the taper to not retain the adaptor.

 

[Dabbler]

+1 on heat BUT I use brass stock filed to be a little curve to be used as a scraper. You can scrape *really hard* if the edge is 90 degrees or so, and never hurt the taper one bit. If the epoxy has metal in it (especially aluminum) vigorous scrubbing is NOT recommended until the bore is almost completely clean already.

If I'm not mistaken, acetone migh help dissolve the remnants of the residue.