Flat Center drive

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Neededwill

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Joined
Jan 18, 2013
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312
Location
Kensington, MD
So I make cufflinks every now and then. I wear the multiple pairs I have mon thru fri. I have made some for other people but lately it seems I have gotten quite a few request.

Now my problem is I use left over cutoffs from my pens I make so the are smaller and square. I have kind of found a way to do them by taking the corners off with the sander. But the difficult part is turning them down and finishing them. I have tried double sided tape, gluing them to a homemade wood center drive that wear out fast.

So I wanted to see if anyone had and ideas. I thought of a morse taper center drive but with a flat face not pointed for tbc. I would glue the wood piece to that but not sure if it would hold. I also thought about a chuck style with small pins.

What do you think? Any help or advice would be appreciated!!!

Here is a set of the ones I wear.

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The approach that I use for pendants would probably work.

I use a flat waste block - in my case, it's threaded to screw on my headstock spindle, but you could also turn a morse taper that fits into the spindle bore, putting a tenon on the end that you glue into a waste block or mount the waste block in a scroll chuck. Turn the waste block round and flatten the face. If the waste block wears away, flatten the face and glue another piece of wood on it to extend its life.

Then, use double stick tape to attach the blank to the flat waste block. Use the tailstock to apply pressure to the blank while rounding it off, then back away the tailstock and finish off the face.

If you need to work on the back (probably not with cufflinks), you could have a second wasteblock that has a circular mortise that is just large enough to contain the finished cufflink - a little double stick tape will hold the blank in the mortise, while the edges of the mortise will keep it centered.
 
Waste block screwed on head stock sounds great. I had made wood with a morse taper but they wear out pretty fast it seems. Will try the idea of screwed on.
 
I like dogcatcher's thought, similar to mine which is stone simple, go to HD or Lowes or wherever and buy an appropriately sized dowel cut to desired length and mount it however it will run true, in a Jacobs chuck, a collet chuck or a multiple jaw chuck, glue your scraps to the dowel with hot glue and proceed.

Let us know what you end up doing!
 
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