Bushings drilled off center

[Finatic]

I started turning a sierra order today and grabbed a new set of bushings to strart off with. While truning I noticed a slight wobble at one end of the blank and thought I may have bent the mandrel. So, I put a new mandrel in and the same thing happened. I turned the blank and bushings 180* and now the wobble was at the opposite end. I checked the bushings and could tell by eye that one of them was drilled off center. I measured the wall thickness of the tube side of the bushing.....079 and .058 directly across. Explains the wobble. I checked several bushing sets and found most of them to be within .002 at quadrant points.
Just wanted to throw this out there for those having problems with off center turnings. may not always be the Mandrel.

 

[jd99]

Had the same issues whenI first started turning pens, I found several of the manufactured bushing that were out of round.

Now I make my own bushings, and I don't use the mandrel any more, I just turn between centers.

 

[crabcreekind]

+1 for turning between centers. penturnersproducts.com has between center bushings... high qualitystuff

 

[patmurris]

Bushings are often a problem. Not that they are out of round, but the center hole is too often too large (the fit on the mandrel is not very tight) and there is a chance that the barrel will be a tad off center... It is not always a big deal but is annoying for sure.

 

[leehljp]

I learned several years ago to purchase two sets of bushings to hopefully get one set that was good. I too had a Sierra bushing back in '07 that was easily visible as to being off center.

When I can, I purchase from Johnnycnc.

If one has the ability to make their own accurately enough, I would recommend doing it.

I too use TBC as TBC eliminates lots of problems of mandrels. TBC doesn't help with off-center holes though!