lopsided pens

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scroller99

Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
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168
Location
Hopewell Junction, new york, USA.
O.K, I really am at wits end. My pens aren't touching the bushings on one side but are fine the rest of the way. I've checked my mandrel for straighness, checked my tapers on the mandrel and the lathe, I have no play on the lathe that i can find. But still I am having problems? I have a cholla blank that I have to get out by the tenth and I really am at the end of my rope. Any thoughts? Oh yeah it's a Delta midi and it has turned atleast 1000 pens in it's 20 years in my shop. thanks Howard
 
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Do you use a pen mill to square the ends, or a belt/disk sander, or what?
As Rangertrek said, if the pen is not square to the brass tube, it will give the indications you mentioned.
gordon
 
Not square... get a good pen mill with a properly sized barrel sleeve or adapter. Your problem will disappear.
:cool::cool::cool:
 
not out of round

scroller99 said:
O.K, I really am at wits end. My pens aren't touching the bushings on one side but are fine the rest of the way. I've checked my mandrel for straighness, checked my tapers on the mandrel and the lathe, I have no play on the lathe that i can find. But still I am having problems? I have a cholla blank that I have to get out by the tenth and I really am at the end of my rope. Any thoughts? Oh yeah it's a Delta midi and it has turned atleast 1000 pens in it's 20 years in my shop. thanks Howard
Click to expand...

In the past, if my lathe is lined up correctly and my mandrel doesn't have a curl in it, I have been putting too much uumph on the brass knurled nut that holds it together. This I have found by experimentation will throw the whole thing out of whack and even flare the ends of the brass tubes. Try backing off the pressure on the mandrel nut once you have turned the blank to round. I also hit the ends of the blanks with the pen mill mounted in the drill press just to make sure that pressure hasn't changed things FWIW
 
I could swear I saw something in the Library about out of round pens, but I'll be darned if I can find it now. I had the problem of the end near the tailstock being out of round. I worked on aligning the lathe and that seemed to solve the problem.
 
scroller99 said:
I usually use an endmill but I have lost a setscrew and this time I squared the blanks on the sander. I'll have to find a new set screw and try it again, thanks Howard
Click to expand...

When you used the sander did you reference off the blank or the tube to get it square with the sander? You have to make sure the tube is square to the sand paper, not the blank.

Here is a library article that shows one way to do it.


http://content.penturners.org/librar...discsander.pdf
 
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