Tailstock Upgrade

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:06 pm

Good Point. If you are DRILLING, why are you trying to do it on a lathe(good idea with metal lathe, bad idea wood lathe). Why not use SS in 'horizontal boring) mode? Clamp the miter gauge in position, place the 'blank' against it, add a stop, clamp blank in position & bore away. Only your setup will mess it up.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:00 pm

Not a pen maker/turner here, but I have a bit of experience in drilling while in lathe mode. When turning pepper and salt mills, it is best and easiest to drill out the centers while in the lathe mode.

After turning/shaping there are center holes remaining on each end of the turning. At this point in the making, just insert a chuck and drill bit into the tailstock using the lathe arbor http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cata ... arbors.htm and bore away using the quill. The workpiece turns and the drill bit remains stable. Oh yeah! You have to have an expandable chuck on the quill in order to make a through hole.

This way, the bit will enter and exit exactly in the center. I usually stop the drilling before the bit exits, then cut off the chucked end of the turning to size. In this case I have to use a caliper to measure the holes depth, but I always have a through hole exactly in the center.

This beats the vertical or horizontal drilling all to pieces. The reason I know this is because in making my first mill, I skipped a step in it's making and had to use the drill press. Believe me, alignment on the lathe is automatic while a setup on the press or horizontal boring is painful.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:41 am

charlese wrote:Not a pen maker/turner here, but I have a bit of experience in drilling while in lathe mode. When turning pepper and salt mills, it is best and easiest to drill out the centers while in the lathe mode.

After turning/shaping there are center holes remaining on each end of the turning. At this point in the making, just insert a chuck and drill bit into the tailstock using the lathe arbor http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cata ... arbors.htm and bore away using the quill. The workpiece turns and the drill bit remains stable. Oh yeah! You have to have an expandable chuck on the quill in order to make a through hole.

This way, the bit will enter and exit exactly in the center. I usually stop the drilling before the bit exits, then cut off the chucked end of the turning to size. In this case I have to use a caliper to measure the holes depth, but I always have a through hole exactly in the center.

This beats the vertical or horizontal drilling all to pieces. The reason I know this is because in making my first mill, I skipped a step in it's making and had to use the drill press. Believe me, alignment on the lathe is automatic while a setup on the press or horizontal boring is painful.

Do you think it a good idea (in lathe mode) to drill a 3/16" hole 2-3" deep in stock 1/2" x 1/2" x 2-3" which you will later attempt to 'turn????

I think the miniscule size of the stock makes it a dicey proposition to drill through in lathe mode.

grauenwolf · Post by **grauenwolf** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:25 am

First of all, this has been the standard way of boring a centered hole using a lathe for a few hundred years.

Secondly, the wood is well supported. I'm using a proper chuck with tall jaws that extend well over half the length of the blank. (Not that it is needed considering we are talking about a short, fairly thick chunk of wood with no lateral pressure being applied.)

If it isn't centered exactly in the chuck jaws, as the bit enters it will be off center but will seek the center the further into the work piece it travels but the entry point will not be centered making it larger.

Wrong. If the blank isn't centered, then you just get a off-center hole. In fact, it is not an unusual technique to intentionally offset the work piece to move the location of a hole.

You will, however, get a larger hole if the bit isn't centered against the center of the chuck. Hence my original complaint about the tailstock.

Do you think it a good idea (in lathe mode) to drill a 3/16" hole 2-3" deep in stock 1/2" x 1/2" x 2-3" which you will later attempt to 'turn????

Using any other lathe, this is both the fastest and the most accurate way.

I'm actually to the point now where I just ask my brother to use his mini-lathe to drill the blanks for me. It takes him only a minute or two to do a whole batch and he doesn't even have to mess with trying to line-up the drill.

This isn't rocket science, this is all covered in day 1 of any high school shop class that has lathes.

Jonathan

grauenwolf · Post by **grauenwolf** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:30 am

JPG40504 wrote:Good Point. If you are DRILLING, why are you trying to do it on a lathe(good idea with metal lathe, bad idea wood lathe). Why not use SS in 'horizontal boring) mode? Clamp the miter gauge in position, place the 'blank' against it, add a stop, clamp blank in position & bore away. Only your setup will mess it up.

When I have a nice self-centering chuck and a lathe to spin it on, I find going back to fussing with trying to manually center it a hard pill to swallow.

Jonathan

grauenwolf · Post by **grauenwolf** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:33 am

nuhobby wrote:Hi,

I found each of my Mark V's tailstocks can deflect a tad under hand pressure.

The tailstock pipes fit into the 2 honed cylinders pretty snug, but definitely not a force-fit. I started trying some paper shims. There was no way to wrap each pipe with paper and still fit the tailstock in the holes. I finally reduced down to 1/2-circumference of 1 of the 2 pipes. This fit OK and was testing significantly stiffer when I pressed the tailstock along the drilling axis.

Good luck!

Awesome! Now that's the kind of stuff I came here to learn.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 2:26 am

JPG40504 wrote:Do you think it a good idea (in lathe mode) to drill a 3/16" hole 2-3" deep in stock 1/2" x 1/2" x 2-3" which you will later attempt to 'turn????

I think the miniscule size of the stock makes it a dicey proposition to drill through in lathe mode.

As I said, I'm not a pen maker, but the specs in your question sounds like a doable thing to me as long as you have a chuck to hold the 1/2" stock. But with that kind of short squared piece, I certainly can understand horizontal boring more than vertical.-- but that's in my shop! One might use wood blocks to hold the pen blank in a Talon chuck.

(I fail to understand why pen turners drill holes before turning. Seems to me with a little longer stock they could leave some wood in the chuck and also some on the tailstock end. The only reason I can remember is "pen blanks" are expensive and come in this size. Seems a larger block of wood and a bit more waste would be easier.)

In my earlier example I did all of the turning, sanding and even finishing before boring the hole. In the smaller mills, the narrowest part of the outside diameter was 1 3/8" - through which, I drilled a 1 1/16" diameter hole - 5 inches deep. Wouldn't have dared tried this with the drill press. My point is - lathe drilling produces accurate work!

Currently, I'm waiting on drill bit extenders to arrive so I can drill a 1 1/16" bore through 15 inches. The mill is all turned and the bottom portion is finished.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:09 am

IF I were making my own pen blanks, I would bore the center holes before the last pass with the saw. i.e. cut stock to thickness desired, drill hole, saw off to square, joint edge on remaining stock, drill next,. . .

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:22 am

Grauenwolf
As you have already found out there isn't a stiffer tailstock.

Why not build one. How about drilling two holes in the existing SS tailstock and screw it onto a board long enough to reach down to the legs. Then drill holes through the board and into the legs mount two bolts in the legs using lock nuts then using lock nuts on both sides of the board bolt the wood to them. Now you using the lock nuts adjust the board to hold the tail stock in perfect aligment and if the board is stout enough nothing you hang on the tail stock will move it. End of problem.

When you done turning simply remove the tailstock and the board and your back to normal.

The thing I don't understand is when I taught to bore a hole like your doing I was taught to use a brad point and to mount the wood so the tip of the brad point was like a dead center tailstock bit. In otherwords the wood before I turned the lathe on was supported between the drive chuck and the bradpoint center spur. With the drill tip embedded in the wood there was no movement if I had the drill in the actual center of the wood. If your letting the wood free and feeding the wood into the drill bit I can believe you will have some sag and you will need my board modification as described above.

Best to you

rkh2 · Post by **rkh2** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 11:17 am

[HTML](I fail to understand why pen turners drill holes before turning.[/HTML]

Chuck

The reason I believe that pen turners drill the holes in the blanks before turning is because they glue the metal inserts into the blanks first and then mount the blanks onto whatever size mandrel and bushings that are needed for that particular size pen. It is my opinion that this also gives the blank more support while it is being turned. I by no way consider myself an expert in pen turning but was taught this method when I learned how to turn pens.