Record Power Tailstock taper?

[Bill21]

A friend has one of those old twin bed bar Record Power lathes. He wants to get a revolving centre for it but doesn’t know what Morse Taper it is. I suspect it’s a MT1 but seem to remember some lathes have a “short” taper making tool selection problematic?

[Richard_C]

The early blue ones were MT1, not sure when or even if they changed.  If the hole is c. 1/2 inch diameter it's likely MT1.

My Newnes Engineers Manual 1965 edition says the socket at the "fat" end is 0.475 inch for MT1 and 0.7 inch for MT2.

I now have a lathe with an MT2 self ejecting tailstock and the center it came with is short taper, my older long MT2 fittings like the jacobs chuck will go in easily enough but start to eject much sooner as you wind it back - so you lose a bit of "handwheel travel" and between centre useable capacity for drilling.  I wonder of taper length is determined by whether or not the tailstock is self ejecting?  I doubt the early ones were so maybe it doesn't matter.

[Bill21]

Thanks for that Richard. I believe he said the opening was about 13mm so it does sound like it’s a MT1.