With all due respect to both Ron and Frank, rafting bowls and pepper mills on a JET mini are two entirely different issues. With respect to turning bowls, the issue is the strength of the motor whereas with respect to to pepper mills, the issue is the strength/design of the tailstock assembly. In my opinion, it is pretty well established that bowls can be successfully crafted on the JET mini in sizes up to and even beyond the published swing specs of the Mini. I think most would agree that crafting of larger bowls and platters requires care and patience and is probably better done on a larger lathe; but it is possible.
OTOH, the issue of pepper mills is unresolved. Again, I don't think there would be too much disagreement in saying pepper mills can be successfully turned on a JET Mini. The real question is whether the materials and design of the Mini tailstock are adequate to stand up to the stresses of "DRILLING" pepper mills. Just because folks have turned pepper mills on a JET Mini doesn't mean they were drilling the blanks on that lathe. Always possible they were drilling the blanks on a big drill press and then moving them to the lather for turning.
And now Frank has has even raised the issue of drilling with the 1442. I raised this same issue with Chuck in a private communication and he basically said the design of the 1442 tailstock was the same as that of the Mini but was much beefier so he didn't expect a problem. Chuck based his opinion on an external examination of the tailstock and a review of the tailstock drawing in the 1442 manual. He indicated he did not disassemble the tailstock and actually look at the lead screw. I also looked at the tailstock drawing shown in the 1442 manual posted on the JET web site and either there "ARE" differences in the two design or the drawing of the 1442 tailstock has an error. Correctly or not, I still have some reservations about using large Forstner bits when drilling on the 1442.
Chucks idea of drilling pilot holes for the big Forstner bits is interesting and one that I would have "GUESSED" to be a bad one. Obviously, I would have been wrong since his initial experience has been positive.
As Ron has correctly pointed out, whether turning bowls or drilling pepper mills, the trick is to use lighter cuts to reduce the stress on the under-sized or under-designed lathe. Chuck has decided to utilize the lighter-cut principle by drilling the big holes in steps rather than drilling them in one shot. That makes a lot of sense to me although I was thinking of using a different method. After Chuck has done another 50 pepper mills, we will be able to better evaluate whether his method has solved the problem or not.
I was thinking about using a tool from the bowl turners inventory. Seems to me that anyone of the bowl turners hollowing tools would work just fine in boring the necessary openings for a pepper mill. Since they would be used to bore the openings in steps, the stresses involved would be greatly reduced. Additionally, they only cut half the diameter of the hole at a time contrary to Forstner bits which are cutting on both sides of the hole at the same time. Other thing of benefit is that those hollowing tools are designed specifically to cut the end grain of wood which may not be the case with Forstner bits.
Another tool that might be used would be a ??? bit. (forgotten what they are called) Frank would know about these as they were originally designed the bore the deep straight holes on gun barrels.
This is a very interesting question. I hope some other pepper mill crafters will jump in and tell us of their experiences.
In Their Memory
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