How to Center Tubing on a Lathe

Holding tubing in place on a lathe is vitally important. If the tubing is not properly secured or exactly centered, your entire lathe cutting project can go awry. Utilizing specific units of your lathe can help prevent possible positioning disasters. A lathe's expanding center features bolts that can be turned with a wrench to fit snugly into the inside of a section of tubing. Once the components are fixed in place, the unit turns at the same rate the tubing revolves.

Wrench
Lathe with expanding center
Tubing

Instructions

- 1
  Use the wrench to turn each bolt around the circumference of the lathe's expanding center equally inward so that the bolts meet in the middle of the unit.
- 2
  Slip one end of the tubing over the end of the expanding center, holding it level and in place with one hand.
- 3
  Turn each bolt equally outward by reaching the wrench inside the tubing where it is positioned around the center. Do this until the heads of the bolts meet the interior walls of the tubing.
- 4
  Check to see if the tubing is securely centered and held in place. Use the wrench the adjust the bolts if necessary to correct the tubing's position.

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