Headstock drive center

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Lee,
There are quite a few different stules of these as well.

If you are fairly new to spindle turning, I recommend what is called the safety center. The reason is that the wood will stop turning quicker if you have a dificulty. However, the biggest benifit is that you are forced to learn to turn with good cutting techniques, rather than using force to go through the wood.
Steb centers are very good as well, and have excellent holding power, which is spread over a larger dia on the workpieces surface.
They also typically do less damage to ehd grain, as they do not sink in as far, and do not need to. These also come in various dias depending on the size of pieces you are turning.
There are also the standard two and four prong centes, which give great bite, and can help to drive through wood that might be a little more difficult.
There are also centers that specialize in starting bowls blanks, and have quite a bot of mass to them. Many of these are actually meant to be located in a chuck instead of in the morse taper.

PSI does sell some good ones, as well as Craft Supplies, Packard, Woodcraft, etc.
I think there are probably a couple of people here who might sell them as well

Jerry
 
I'm trying to get Rick Herrell to make me a custom one to fit in my Beall Collet chuck. If several of use need them, he might be willing to make them up?
 
I bought the steb center and then took it to my local machine shop and had them turn it down to 3/4". Works in the Beall collet just fine.
 
Lee, according to the Woodcraft of Atlanta website, they have two 1" and two 5/8" Woodriver steb drives in stock. They are located off Holcomb Bridge Rd in Roswell (I think it's Roswell), which would not be far to drive from Marietta. You should probably call and verify they have them, though.
 
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For turning pen blanks round I use a dead center . Never have to worry about a catch and you learn what "A light touch" means . It takes some getting used to but really works great .
 
bgibb42 said:
Lee, according to the Woodcraft of Atlanta website, they have two 1" and two 5/8" Woodriver steb drives in stock. They are located off Holcomb Bridge Rd in Roswell (I think it's Roswell), which would not be far to drive from Marietta. You should probably call and verify they have them, though.
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I have this one. It's a knock off of a Steb center and it works well, ESPECIALLY at half the price!!!:wink:
 
I suspect Sorby has had some discussions with those making knockoffs -- PSI is no longer selling the knockoffs in the same sizes that Sorby is supplying. The knockoffs are 5/8 and the Sorby is 1/2. The text on the PSI page is mixed so the change is probably recent.

I have both Sorby and PSI knockoffs -- finish is better on Sorby, but both the drive and live centers from PSI seem to fuction as intended for spindle turning and roughing blanks. The 3/4 live center is a bit large for smallish pen blanks.
 
If want a small steb drive that won't break the bank HF has a Spot weld cutter for 4.99 item #95343. I have been using mine for a few months. Holds great and is 3/8 dia.
Mark
 
leestoresund said:
Brian I will have to call them as I can not find it on their website. 5/8ths is just what I was looking for.

Thanks.

Lee
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If you go to Woodcraft's website and scroll down the page just a bit, you should see a box to type in your zipcode. This will refresh the page and when you scroll back down, there should be a bold link to Woodcraft of Atlanta. When you click on that, it will take you to their page, which is just part of the Woodcraft site. On the left will be a Store Inventory box, where you can type in the Woodcraft # of anything you're looking for.

I know this is kind of late, but you can just file this away for future reference. Hope it helps.
 
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