My collet chuck is less accurate than my pen chuck

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MedWoodWorx

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This could be the title of my summer ordeal. As a said before under the description of my olive wood litless fp @hooked drilled a few ebonite sleeves for me. I bought the corresponding mandrels from beaufort ink and tried to turn the barrels, caps and sections. The sections so far have been a mess: it seems that the mandrel doesn't turn true and the nib side of the section is not round ( the hole is not concentric). I ve double checked everything and also put my collet chuck aside because its really inaccurate. The problem persists, anyone has any ideas why? Cheers
 
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Can you explain what you mean by "the hole is not concentric"? I assume you are using the M10x1 threaded side of the mandrel that connects at the tenon, not the side that screws into the nib housing threads?

I believe I tested all the sections to ensure they fit the nib, and I didn't notice any concentric issues with the sections.
 
When folks tell me stuff is not concentric, or things are 'not quite round', my advice is always stop, do some cleaning and setup, then check again. Headstock and tailstock mis-alignment is usually a biggy - if they are not dead on, bad things happen. A dirty morse taper will also throw things off, as well as a dirty seat on the back of the headstock drive threads. Penturning is not like most turnings done on a lathe, as we are dealing with fractions of fraction of an inch so everything has to be dead on the money.

If you have the ability to measure alignment and runout of the headstock/tailstock connection as well as the mandrel and collet chuck, I'd start there and work to get everything clean and aligned. Nothing will work correctly unless it's setup right.

Kevin
 
Can you explain what you mean by "the hole is not concentric"? I assume you are using the M10x1 threaded side of the mandrel that connects at the tenon, not the side that screws into the nib housing threads?

I believe I tested all the sections to ensure they fit the nib, and I didn't notice any concentric issues with the sections.
I ll upload some pictures tomorrow to see what i mean, its probably my fault i just can't find out what exactly i am doing wrong. Thank you all for your advice, cheers.
 
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