Pen Mill Problems

[texasfootball21]

My pen mill, a standard little mill kit from wood craft, is not working correctly!

The mill is cutting roughly and when you remove the blank, it is not square, it appears to have little waves all around where the mill cut.

I use the mill with my small (and terrible) ryobi drill press. I use the 10mm attachment for pens with large tubes, such as the 12.5 and 10.5mm tubes of the Jr. Gent. I press and hold the mill shaft against the side of the tube when I mill.

I thought my problem was a dull cutter head, so I replaced mine with a six blade cutter head from Daniel here at IAP, and the problem continues!

Any help appreciated.

 

[hunter-27]

I would start by, A) buying the correct sizing bushings for the bigger tubes or B) MAKE the Correct sizing bushings for the bigger tubes.

 

[Lulanrt]

I got nothing. Sorry
Travis

 

[its_virgil]

Make yourself some shims for each tube size. Here what I do: drill and glue in a 7mm tube in a scrap of wood. Turn the scrap so that the kit's tube to be used will just slide over the newly turned shim. I get really close with tools and finish the sizing with sandpaper. I only have one pen mill with the 7mm shaft. The fit must be very very close or you will get those marks you described. They are caused as the cutter head wobbles because of the wrong size pilot shaft. I've attached a picture of some of my shims.

Also, not many will agree and I may be one of the few who think so, but a pen mill is a hand tool. Make a handle for it. You should be cutting the blanks so that the mill used in a handle will do the job quite adequately.
Do a good turn daily!
Don

My pen mill, a standard little mill kit from wood craft, is not working correctly!

The mill is cutting roughly and when you remove the blank, it is not square, it appears to have little waves all around where the mill cut.

I use the mill with my small (and terrible) ryobi drill press. I use the 10mm attachment for pens with large tubes, such as the 12.5 and 10.5mm tubes of the Jr. Gent. I press and hold the mill shaft against the side of the tube when I mill.

I thought my problem was a dull cutter head, so I replaced mine with a six blade cutter head from Daniel here at IAP, and the problem continues!

Any help appreciated.

 

[leehljp]

What you are experiencing will become even more of a problem when you start dealing with burls, brittle woods and some segmented blanks - Blowouts/tearouts. What Virgil says is the way to go.

I will make another suggestion. On delicate blanks, use a sander and take your time - creep up on the final finish and squareness. I have Lee Thomas's Sander Mill and use that for final squaring.

 

[jimm1]

I may be way off, but have you checked the squareness of your table to path of your drill press plunge? If you are clamping your blank, not going in square, you could be compounding the issue. Also, how fast is the mill spinning? Slow it down.

 

[JimB]

Also, all you needed to do was sharpen your first cutter head instead of buying a new one. They are easy to sharpen and it only takes a minute or two.

 

[Daniel]

That you are getting waves in the cut tells me you are getting chatter or movement some where. I know on my drill press the quill does have some play if it is allowed any reason to vibrate it will. using the wrong size bushing would allow this sort of chatter.
I don't clamp my blanks when trimming them so the pilot is the only thing that keeps the quill and blank in alignment regardless of whether the quill is vibrating or not. to high of a speed could cause this also. A dull cutter head will most likely just leave burn marks on the blank rather than chatter but that is not a given.

 

[its_virgil]

...ans here is how its done.
http://penmakersguild.com/articles/penmillsharpening1.pdf

do a good turn daily!
Don

Also, all you needed to do was sharpen your first cutter head instead of buying a new one. They are easy to sharpen and it only takes a minute or two.

 

[Lulanrt]

Try using a hand drill and vice grips and see if it still does it. Maybe your bearings in your drill press going out.
Travis

 

[Daniel]

Don, that is a great job of showing just how to go about sharpening these things. I would offer that you can probably get away with hand sharpening a mill 4 or 5 times before you need to worry about having changed angles enough to matter if you sharpen on the blue surface. any hand sharpening is going to change angles eventually. but by sharpening on the blue surface it becomes so small as to not really matter until it is multiplied several times over. Also keep in mind that by sharpening on this surface you will have much more control over how much material is removed and the less material removed the more sharpening you will get out of a single head.
Harbor Freight has really low cost diamond hones in fine med and course that work very well for this.

 

[Lulanrt]

Don,
Thanks for the sharpening advice.
Travis

 

[Jim15]

Thanks Don.

 

[JohnU]

What you are experiencing will become even more of a problem when you start dealing with burls, brittle woods and some segmented blanks - Blowouts/tearouts. What Virgil says is the way to go.

I will make another suggestion. On delicate blanks, use a sander and take your time - creep up on the final finish and squareness. I have Lee Thomas's Sander Mill and use that for final squaring.

I agree with this but also add that sometimes with softer wood you might want to stop short of your mark with the trimmer and add thin CA. Let it sit a bit to soak in and then finish. It will help your soft wood from blow outs while milling, and help leave a smooth end.

 

[texasfootball21]

Turned some sleeves as suggested, fixed the problem completely!

IAP members save the day again!

Thanks.