Bushings

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Hexhead

Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
185
Location
Fayetteville, AR, USA.
I've got a pen PKcombo2. It's a pen and pencil all-in-one and I just found out that Penn State doesn't carry bushings anymore, or in fact the pen kit. I haven't heard very good things about this pen kit, I guess that's why it's being discontinued.

The reason for this post is I was wondering if anybody had some bushings that like to sell. I've got the dimensions but I really don't don't want to waste the time making them if the kit is no good.

You can PM me if you have some.

Thanks guys and gals
 
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If you have a live centre and a dead centre, then you don't really need bushings.

Just put the centres right in the ends of the tubes. Normally I do this after I have turned down half way to size.
I recommend that you knock the corners off with a belt sander then turn at about 2500rpm. Take light cuts and it will turn down quite quickly. You want to minimize the number of times the tool catches and stops the blank spinning.
You only want to tighten the tail stock enough to make the piece spin. If you over tighten to much, you may spread the end of the tube, cracking the wood.

Just use a set of calipers to measure the diameter until you are the rit size for the components. This is the most accurate way to size (the only way I do it any more). It will also eliminate any out of round caused by worn bushings.

This way you can try the kit at no extra expense.

I hope this helps.
 
If you don't want to follow Darrin's good advice and are more comfortable using a mandrel, just drill a 1/4" hole in some scrap material (corian would be good, but a hard wood will work) and turn them to the finished size of your components. Assuming you have digital calipers, these will guide you to getting close and you can use the calipers to get things exact.
 
Thanks for the input, I was just being lazy. When I talked about making bushings I was talking about steel ones, but after reading what you guys have said that's exactly what I'm going to do, thanks again.

Kind of a side thought, what happened to the wizard form? I have a pen wizard but I don't see many new posts there.
 
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