Another way of Squaring Blank Ends

[joefyffe]

Another little tool I made this morning for squaring blanks. I used Aluminum, but I feel sure it would work equally as well with Delrin. I first tried it with adhesive backed, coarse sandpaper and it sucked! Loaded up quickly! (It may be o.k. with wood, but I was doing Alumilite). I changed speed and went to a finer grade sandpaper and it still sucked.
Finally, I took a strip of 120 and placing the sand against the blank, I ran the tailstock, with chucked tool, up against the backside of the sandpaper, applying enough pressure to cause the sandpaper to cut. I pulled the sandpaper back and forth, between the tool and blank (as the blank spun) and "Viola", success!!!!!!!!! Then I took it a step further and used some 400 wet. That made it shine. This is not necessary for kit pens with metal parts covering the ends. But I was working on the front end of a kitless "section" so I went one step further. I took some Novus on a folded paper towel, placed that between the blank and "new tool" and let it spin. It reaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy shined!

 

[mikespenturningz]

Now that is a cool idea.

 

[walshjp17]

Verily, that is way cool! For those of us without Delrin, perhaps we could make it from laminated Corian.

 

[dogcatcher]

Take a short 3/8" lag bolt, screw it in to the center of one side of a 1.25" cube of wood. Mount in your collet chuck, turn round and face the opposite end. Use it the same way in a drill chuck in your tailstock. Or use it in you collet with your blank on a drill bit as guide in the tailstock.