Riten - vs - Royal Centers

mksj said:
I would doubt one would be able to tell the difference between most live centers at the level of work that is done as a hobbyist. Most of these have a tolerance probably comparable or better than your lathe spindle bearing.
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Holy cow I just Googled these. They damn near cost as much as my lathe did! I'd hope they would be better tolerance than the spindle bearing.
 
Fortunately I picked mine up about 7 years ago for about $200 new, it is very nice but I use my Shar's CNC extended point much more frequently. I wish I had purchased a better extended point, I would rather by quality once. Nez, I assume you are using the stock live center that came with the lathe? The stock ones are inexpensive and pretty light weight. I think you can get a very good live center in the 100-200 range is you keep a lookout on eBay. The Riten posted should be quite good and you can always offer less.

Swiss SFJ live center, I like that you have an indicator for the tension and that the spring tension will take up any small changes in movement.
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I have two Ritens and a Skoda as well as one I made myself. The two Ritens I got were NOS and the bearings were really tight. I believe the grease had dried up not sure. Anyway I sent one back to Riten and got new bearings and made it a long point or CNC point. The other one sits on my shelf. I suppose some day I may send it in and make it a tracer point or maybe a bull nose. The Skoda has been great.
 
mksj said:
Fortunately I picked mine up about 7 years ago for about $200 new, it is very nice but I use my Shar's CNC extended point much more frequently. I wish I had purchased a better extended point, I would rather by quality once. Nez, I assume you are using the stock live center that came with the lathe? The stock ones are inexpensive and pretty light weight. I think you can get a very good live center in the 100-200 range is you keep a lookout on eBay. The Riten posted should be quite good and you can always offer less.

Swiss SFJ live center, I like that you have an indicator for the tension and that the spring tension will take up any small changes in movement.
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Thanks, Mark. Will be on the look out for better ones on eBay. Made an offer on the Skoda, let's see what happens

That Swiss live center looks just like any Swiss made product - nothing but the best.
 
I can't speak for the Ritten's because I've never had one. I can say the Royals are good quality. I've had a couple over 30 years and they still perform well. I didn't buy them because I thought they were top line, but rather because we had them at work.. I think some at work were older than me and were still in good shape. At the time I was more interested in buying tooling one time rather than having to replace it every few years. The Royal's haven't disappointed me.

I also have a couple Skoda's. They too perform well. Now days they seem to be about half the price of the Royals. I don't recall that much difference in price when I was buying them. Then again I don't think I paid half what they're asking for either of them today.
 
Here is another question. What is the drawback in running a MT2 live center in a MT3 TS using a sleeve adapter?

There is a Swiss SFJ live center on eBay, but with MT2 shank. It is perfect for my the JET 1024, just curious about its use with a sleeve.
 
There is an MT3 SFJ live center on ebay so direct fit. Auction ends in 3 hours or so.

There is a Royal Interchangeable tip live center, MT3, for the ridiculous price of $60.00. It comes with a tip to machine your own extended tip; just the tip costs more than the offered center. If you buy this and machine the tip roughly to what you want, Royal will grind the tip to meet their specs for free.
 
mikey said:
There is an MT3 SFJ live center on ebay so direct fit. Auction ends in 3 hours or so.

There is a Royal Interchangeable tip live center, MT3, for the ridiculous price of $60.00. It comes with a tip to machine your own extended tip; just the tip costs more than the offered center. If you buy this and machine the tip roughly to what you want, Royal will grind the tip to meet their specs for free.
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Bought the Royal and will do as you suggested.

Thanks, Mikey.
 
I think you made a good buy, Nez. It looked to be in good shape in pics but you never know with ebay. That is an older style changeable tip live center. Similar to the newer ones but if the bearing needs to be changed, Royal should do it. They can completely refurbish it if needed; hopefully, yours will be good.

Royal knows that in order for a changeable tip to run concentric with the live center axis, that tip MUST be ground in the live center in which it is used. That's why you have to send the tip and center to them. If you bought a set of tips on ebay or made tips you need, contact them and they'll arrange for you to send your kit in and they'll bring it to specs. For a Royal, that means 0.00005" TIR under load.
 
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