There is nothing to stop you buying the longest you can get, boring the end and loctiting a suitable extension, or even brazing it, The ends are soft anyway.

Jon,

Arrand make them, though I think you might take fright at the price (£140+).

**LINK**

They do make good quality stuff though.

Alternatively, if economy is your main driver, you could try making your own 2MT shank on a long piece of steel and then make the arbour you need on it.

David

Why not just run centres both ends.

Jon,

http://www.tools4cheap.net sell exactly what your looking for including the spacers for positioning the cutting tool. These are brand new reproductions of what the Atlas horizontal mill use. Jeff Beck is the owner and an excellent person to deal with.

Pete

How much!

Seriously though why not turn an MT2 taper on a bit of 1" bar and make your own arbour?

Paul

Exactly, there is a minimum charge of £35 over at the heat treatment shop over the road and God knows what them robbing bastards at Rolls Royce want to cylindrical grind it after heat treat.

It's all relative , I wouldn't give more than £20 for a toy choo choo anyway.

Edited By John Stevenson on 04/08/2012 01:30:15

Getting back to the original posting.

Mexican Jon wondered whether a long arbor supported by the tailstock would be better than a short version. I would say that it depends on how near the MT2 end the load is. I say 'load' because we dont know whether its the gear or the cutter on the arbor.

Surely having the cutter or gear close to the headstock is going to more rigid than the same load in the middle of a long arbor with one end only supported by the tailstock.

Ian

Hi Mex

Well one of the features of this forum is that it does tend to get a little out of hand at times!

If my remarks fall into that category then I apologise – it was not my intention that they should do so and I guess I was reacting to other posts rather than to your original query. Looking at the 'photo of John's suggested arbour from ARC I wonder if it has a centre hole at the nut end – if so, you could then of course, provide additional  tailstock support. A call to them on Monday would, I'm sure, supply the answer.

Regards

Norman

Edited By NJH on 04/08/2012 23:13:40

One of the first things I made on my new lathe when I gave up wood turning was a batch of morse taper centers for wood turning, about 10 pairs of driving and tailstock centers in size 1MT, and 2MT, that got me cutting tapers fairly well, maybe not too fast though, but they sold well. Made a few simple live centers, suitable for use in a wood lathe. Ian S C