FGarbrecht
Member
Pretty new to this so bear with my dumb question. I'm turning a stabilized maple burl blank on a mandrel with bushings using a carbide scraper and the dust and chips coming off are really hot; hot enough to be uncomfortable when they hit my hand. I haven't noticed this before (just some moderate warmth), but I've only turned about 10 pens, so my experience is very limited. I assume that I probably just need to turn the carbide to get a fresh cutting surface, but I actually just turned it yesterday and it has only about 30 minutes on the current surface. Turn it again? I'm not sure what is going on.
I'm also getting a little chatter with this one too. I'm turning a two blank pen and have both on the mandrel for the initial roughing; the blank closest to the tailstock is the one giving me chatter. I have the mandrel-saver snugged up firmly enough to spin the blanks but not too tight, I don't think. I noticed that the bushings have a tiny bit of play in the blanks (I used the bushings specifically for this kit). Once these are roughed close to size I'll put them between centers for the final shaping so hopefully it won't be an issue at that point.
I'm also getting a little chatter with this one too. I'm turning a two blank pen and have both on the mandrel for the initial roughing; the blank closest to the tailstock is the one giving me chatter. I have the mandrel-saver snugged up firmly enough to spin the blanks but not too tight, I don't think. I noticed that the bushings have a tiny bit of play in the blanks (I used the bushings specifically for this kit). Once these are roughed close to size I'll put them between centers for the final shaping so hopefully it won't be an issue at that point.