Making Your Own TBC Bushings-- What Metal?

[VirgilJ]

I want to start turning my pens between centers but I have a couple of limitations I have to deal with.

First, I'm aparently allergic to the dust and shavings of turnings. Not quite sure yet what I'm allergic to, but I was forced to add a pretty restrictive dust hood hooked up to a 2HP dust collector to remove the dust and wear long sleve shirts. The dust hood works great, but it does limit how close I can move the tail stock to the head stock. I could cut out the dust hood a bit to allow the tail stock to move closer, but I'm afraid that would reduce the effectiveness of the dust removal and I'd be back to itching like crazy again.

The second issue is I turn a lot of low cost pens and find it's too time consuming to use a caliper for turning. I use a caliper and match the blanks to pert size on more expensive pens, but the cheapies I find it fast and accurate enough to do a good bushing match. I still want the fit to be very good so bushing that won't wear quickly under normal sanding and finishing is a real bonus to me.

My approach to solving this is to turn myown bushings. I'll make them a bit longer and the two center bushings will be one piece. That should allow me to leave the dust hood in place and still turn between centers. I also intend to harden the bushings so they'll wear a lot less and maintain tollerance much longer.

My question is what metal should I use ?? I've seen stainless mentioned on here a few times, but my experience turning stainless is not that good and I'm no sure how to harden stainless if indeed it can be hardened. I was thinking the quick and easy way is to use water hardening drill rod. It turns pretty easily, hardens easily, and is readily available.

Any suggestions you have on what metal I should use would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dan Masshardt]

You're going to turn two barrels at a time with a bushing in the middle?

Sounds like a bad idea to me. The less making surfaces the better. I think that with all the modifications a you are having to make, you will lose most of the advantage of turning between centers.

One alternative to the longer bushings you're talking about may be a morse taper extention.

I think your best move is to fabricate a dust hood in light of turning between centers. I started a thread on dust collection awhile back and a couple people shared nice boxes they made that should suit your needs.

 

[VirgilJ]

You're probably right about the extended bushings Dan. Most likely wouldn't be any better than a mandrel. I still would like to make my own normal sized hardened bushings. I still would like to know what metal to use.

This is the dust hood I made:

 

[Dan Masshardt]

You're probably right about the extended bushings Dan. Most likely wouldn't be any better than a mandrel. I still would like to make my own normal sized hardened bushings. I still would like to know what metal to use. This is the dust hood I made:

Nice box. You could maybe make another with shorter plexiglass.

Probably easier said than done though

I don't know anything about hardening. Others hopefully will.

 

[Dalecamino]

Assuming you have a metal lathe to make them with, a steel bolt or, brass (6061) comes to mind. Also stainless.

 

[randyrls]

Virgil; I use 12L14 mild steel. It is easy to machine with a metal lathe. Aluminum 6061 can be turned on a wood lathe. Don't get aluminum in the local big box store, it is floor sweepings.

 

[TBCbushings]

I use 17~4 for my bushings...6061 aluminum is ok but it does not turn well dry...i have never turned any on a wood lathe but i have machined a ton of it.
Brian

 

[Ironwood]

I make mine out of 304 or 316 stainless steel, depends what I have on hand. I dont really notice any difference between the two.
I have never tried to harden mine. I dont see the point, as I put the almost finished blank between centres for the final few passes with the tool and for sanding.

And now, I have taken it one step further, I rarely use bushes at all, I just put the tubed blank between centres and turn that way. A bit more care needs to be taken, but I like the results I get.

 

[VirgilJ]

Thank you all for the suggestions!

I've done a lot of reading in the last few days and have come to the conclusion that oil hardening drill rod is what I'm going to use.

I'm going to harden the bushings once I turn them to size. This way I can do a good bushing match on low end pens and the bushings should hold up well to the sanding.

I'll do the same thing for high end pens , but the bushing will only be a guide. I'll continue using calipers to measure the parts and match the blank to the actual part dimensions on high end pens. I've had good results doing it that way, but it is a bit time consuming.