Sabaharr
Member
I guess I should have put this tip here first but here it is now. I have often wondered how much pressure to crank on my tailstock when using a mandrel saver. Not enough and the blank stops spinning and too much can eventually damage headstock or mandrel saver bearings. I devised a cheap (free for me) method that puts the perfect pressure and has not failed me yet. Before mounting anything else on the mandrel I made a sandwich of two small flat washers and a split lock washer that just fit on the mandrel shaft, then mounted everything else as usual. Enough pressure applied to flatten the split washer is all it takes.