Home made bushings

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furini

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Joined
Nov 23, 2008
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214
Location
Brighton, UK
Hi all
Love the forum and have already got a lot of useful information and inspiration from trawling through it - many thanks.
I've got a metal working lathe and a large stock of hard steel rod inherited from my mother's father-in-law - is hard steel a suitable material to make bushings from? I know they are not hugely expensive to buy but I need to learn how to use my metal lathe as well as my wood turning one!
cheers
Stewart
 
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furini

Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2008
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214
Location
Brighton, UK
Thanks, Mike
I wasn't sure if it would be too hard if I caught a bushing with one of my wood chisels - though I know that I shouldn't 'let' that happen!

Stewart
 

bitshird

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Aug 27, 2007
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10,236
Location
Adamsville, TN, USA.
I make all my bushings out of 01 drill rod, for turning between centers and they hold up well, I haven't found the need to harden them the 01 is a high carbon steel so it's harder than cold rolled or 1018. I guess a lot also depends on what you term as hard steel, cold rolled is around 16-18 c scale Rockwell and 01 is around 23-24, but will heat treat to well over 65, unless you have carbide tooling I wouldn't try any thing that is actually hard, 01 will cut fine with HSS tooling, but carbide bits do work quicker.
 

furini

Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2008
Messages
214
Location
Brighton, UK
Hi
I don't actually know how hard the steel I've got is - I only know it's not mild. I've had some of it on the metal lathe and it cuts ok with hss, so if it's ok for bushings and won't hurt the cutting edges of my wood chisels if I hit the bushings when turning pens I can see a new project coming on.
 

furini

Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2008
Messages
214
Location
Brighton, UK
Hi Scott
Thanks for the tip - don't have any aluminium or delrin so will probably use what I've got and save the money for more kits.
Cheers
Stewart
 

sbell111

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Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Messages
3,465
Location
Franklin, TN
It's a trade off.

The soft stuff is going to wear faster and possibly 'color' your light woods. The hard stuff is going to dull your chisels if they come in contact, leading to more frequent sharpening and a slightly shorter tool life.
 

jp_white

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Joined
Nov 23, 2008
Messages
40
Location
OKC, OK
I just made my first mandrel-less pen(half of a pen) with a homemade corian bushing. I needed to fix a slimline that i had broke while assembling. Luckily for me I have a jacobs chuck that fits on the headstock (shopsmith). Used my parting tool and made a couple of slimline bushings with a cylinder to put in the chuck. I'm pretty sure I won't be using the mandrel as much anymore. The interesting thing was that the half that I just did without a mandrell is a perfect fit and I may have to touch up the top half now. This is fun.
 
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