Edgar Westbury proposed a different type of revolving centre in his book Lathe Accessories. This uses only one ball and because of this it can be made into a very compact unit. It is also very simple to make. I made one of these with a traditional 60 degree centre point and it worked very well. The drag is greater than a traditional revolving centre and greater pressure from the tailstock is required to get the centre to rotate but this is the only real difference. As time has passed I have needed other centres and I have slowly increased my selection of centres to include a 60 degree female centre, a cone centre for tubes and a revolving chuck centre. These all share the same 2 Morse taper shank that fits the tailstock of my Asian mini-lathe. Photograph 1 shows this collection of revolving centres.
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