I am trying to do scallops. I can glue them up and make the cuts just fine. Problem I have is in trimming and squaring the barrel to the blank. I do not have a disc sander. What do you guys use? Do you just use a pen mill or something else? Tonight I sent a peice of the scallop flying .
If you have a 3/4 inch or a 1 inch hole saw, you can drill a plug from hardwood. Then carefully epoxy the plug squarely onto the center of spare mandrel.
Cut the mandrel approximately 3 inches on either side of the hardwood plug.
Then, sharpen one end of a piece of 3/4 metal conduit. This will serve to stamp 3/4 round sanding discs (from sheet sand paper) to put on your sanding mandrel.
Mount the mandrel on your lathe (barrel insert required for larger than 7mm tubes) and hold the blank against the sander while turning at a very slow speed.
OR CONTRACT RHARRELL. He makes a very similar instrument for just a few bucks.