New Chuck - Will Be Drilling on the Lathe

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dankc908

dankc908

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Mar 24, 2009
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I am in the process of buying the necessary equipment to drill my pen blanks on the lathe. I have the Barracuda 2 T/N chuck coming, will be getting a drill 1/2" chuck for the lathe and the "pen drilling" jaws for the C series chucks when they are back in stock. Does anyone know of any good tutorials, youtube videos, etc. that could help me to learn how to do this. I, particularly, need to know how to best do my drilling for slimlines, trimlines, etc. on the lathe without blowing out the ends of my blanks (wood and acrylics). Any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated.

Dan
 
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If you bought the Barracuda2 T/N, it should have a set of pin jaws with it. If you got the kit. If you get the blank centered in the jaws (just twist the blank while tightening the chuck) it will drill centered. Provided your tailstock is in line.
 
Dan, congratulations on your new chucks! I think you will find drilling on the lathe to be very accurate.
I use a collet chuck myself but the procedure is the same. I have a video posted here ... fwiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1suUVIQpfQ

I sometimes will use a center drill ... it helps create a starter hole that is perfectly centered. They are cheap and double ended. johnnycnc has them.
Best of Luck!
 
I've drilled hundreds upon hundreds of blanks on the lathe. It's slower than a drill press but you drill very, very center on the pen.


Here is how I drill every blank, and keep in mind that I've blown out maybe 5 blanks over the past 5 years or so, so at the most. This method is a very cautious method and works for me.

This will work on any material I've done yet (many woods, tru-stone, aluminum, brass, acryic, polyester resin, "worthless wood" type blanks, etc...)

I DO NOT cut my blanks more than about 1/8" or 1/4" longer than needed. I've found it to be unnecessary once you get the hang of it, but for now, maybe a 1/2" extra is a safe way to start. You can get chipping on the back hole if you aren't careful.

1) Lathe set to 500rpm. No faster. Just causes heat buildup.

2) Grip the 4 corners of your blank with the long-nose jaws. I use a Barracuda I chuck.

3) Put your drill chuck in the tailstock. I recommend a draw bar if you have one; once in a while a dirty MT2 can cause the drill to pop out as you back out the drill... which will cause you to shart yourself.

4) Pre-drill a pilot hole using a top quality drill bit around 1/4". Advance the drill bit using your tailstock crank. Drill all the way through, but you MUST BACK THE DRILL BIT OUT every 1/4 to 3/4" (depending on the material). PURGE THE BIT OFTEN. Get a good split point bit, and my favorite is the drill bit from Woodcraft for 7mm pens or the size "O" bit from Woodcraft, both work great. For 7mm pens, you're done :D.

5) Swap out the drill bit (I have two chucks; one for pre-drilling, one for final drilling, for when I make large numbers of the same pen.... moves things along very quickly).

6) Drill final hole AND MOVE VERY SLOWLY. This final cut WILL TEND TO SELF-FEED if you aren't careful. Keep tailstock locked down firmly here. The self-feeding can, with dense materials, be so strong that it can pop the drill chuck lose, causing you to shart yourself again. Hence the draw bar (which admittedly I don't use right now b/c I've learned to work around it).


I wish I could do a short video of this but it's already been done :D and I don't have a digital recorder anyhow.
 
Dan:
You'll be surprised how simple this really is, and how quickly you'll learn to drill by "feel".
I just snap on the chuck with the pin jaws, tighten and go ahead on.

Unless I'm doing something really special, or the lathe already happens to be on the slow pulley, I don't even bother to go to the lowest speed (jet 1014 Vsi). I just turn the speed knob all the way to the left, blast the drill bit with PAM and get on with it.

I make so many pens the same size, that I know how many turns of the tailstock each pen "type" takes and I do start slowing down on the last 4 or 5 turns.

After awhile, you don't even have to look at the blank anymore. You can drill by "feel and sound".

Respectfully submitted.
 
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I've been drilling on the lathe for a while now, and only had a blow out once: I was in a rush, cranking a bit to hard and didn't bother to back out the drill to clear the chips. I think that drilling on the lathe is so much slower than a drill stand, and the ratio of turning the wheel to quill movement is so much bigger that you can get a very good feel of how much resistance the blank is giving you.

If anything, I think that cutting the blank much longer has given me more trouble, I do t think it's worth it.

I did however run into one problem: very often I discovered that the entry hole had somehow become flared: most of the hole would be a nice snug fit but the first 1/4"-1/2" or so would be considerably bigger than the tube.
This problem had been discussed here recently.

I have found that not drilling a full pilot hole solved it, for me: now I use a centering bit to start a hole, just 1/2" or so, that go straight to the final size. This has worked even for big bits like the gentlemans kit bits.
 
I switched to drilling on the lathe, and I really like the nicely centered holes I get. What did it for me was investing in a set of pin jaws for the Nova chuck I have.

I also bought a set of center drills at Harbor Freight for ~ $5-6. The mid-sized drill in the set would have been fine for almost all applications, but they only had a set of 5. However, it was a reasonable price for a set, and a good investment.

I put a masking tape tape marker on the bit for a visual drill stop, and like others have mentioned, back it out often to prevent blowouts. I drill to where the tip of the bit, or the point of a brad point bit, almost pokes thru. I then take a super thin slice off the blank on my bandsaw, and I am ready to glue in the brass tube.
 
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