Mandrel problem

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SnakeCharmer

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Nov 29, 2006
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46
Location
Port Orchard, WA, USA.
When I turn my pens I notice that the mandrel will loosen. When I Stop the lathe I notice that the 7mm rod has started to come unscrewed from the head part of the mandrel. This even seems to happen when I tighten the tail stock real hard..... Am I missing something? The direction of the lathe tells me that it should be tightening the mandrel not loosening it...... :)
 
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If you have a lot of out of round pens. A little secret that I just learned. Before you get down to finish size, stop the lathe. Turn the right blank a quarter turn toward you, and the left blank quarter turn away. Do this 3 times and this will round out your blank. Be very careful as it takes a bit of practice to know when to turn and don't take too much off. It takes just a touch. Works for me.
 
Make sure threads are clean and use some thread lock (blue) when assembling. Tighten mandrel down snugly in the MT head.
 
In addition, do not crank down on the tailstock. You'll bow the mandrel and start getting out of round pens. Tighten just enough after contact so that the live center is spinning with the rest of the mandrel, rod, and blanks.
 
I have also found to that sometime if you are using to slow a spped during turning the pen will get out of round due to hard spots in the wood. These can be caused by a segment of tight grain, crotch, or branch knots. It just happened to me on curly maple with a knot in it, sped the lathe up to 3050 RPM after I noticed it was still down at 1500 rpm, and the bump or out of round then came out with a skew, easily. Maybe I'll learn from my mistakes. LOL

Sheldon
 
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