Tool review; Lee's "Sander Mill".

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stevers

stevers

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Dec 18, 2005
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Hello All,
I just received my sander mill from Lee, (firefyterEMT). This is my review of this tool.

The tool's fit and finish is excellent. It is polished to a mirror finish. It is true and balanced perfectly. The shaft which the barrel goes on is just the right size. Snug but not so tight you have to force the tube on.
It does an excellent job squaring the ends of the tubes. I just cut a Sierra and it powered through it with no problem. The sand paper cleans up easily with a blast of air, (from my mouth) or a quick brush with a plastic bristle brush.

Over all the tool is very well made and does the job it was intended for very well. Bellow are some photos of it in use.

Here is the sander mill mounted in the chuck of my drill driver,
200822221345_pen%20mill%201.jpg



Here is the sander mill with my pen mill spacer on it. You can see the sand paper in this shot also.
200822221457_pen%20mill%202.jpg



Here it has cut a PR blank. You can see all of the sanding dust from the cut.
200822221614_pen%20mill%203.jpg



This is the finished product. Flat and perfectly true to the tube.
200822221741_pen%20mill%204.jpg



There are several great benefits to milling a blank this way. One being, you can mill a blank up to the diameter of the mill. This is handy for larger pens. Secondly, there is no chance of chatter or chipping like you may experience on some more brittle materials. Thirdly, you never have to sharpen or replace the mill. Just pop on a new piece of sand paper and your back in buiss.

My rating of this tool is an A+. Too long coming is what I say. Thanks Lee for the great idea.

The only improvement I can think of would be to put a quick connect end on it so I can use my quick connect bit holder.
 
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Originally posted by stevers
There are several great benefits to milling a blank this way. One being, you can mill a blank up to the diameter of the mill. This is handy for larger pens.
Click to expand...
Hmm... is that unique to this tool? Maybe I'm missing something.. I thought every pen mill could do that ;)

I would have thought the tool is more suited to re-squaring finished barrels after turning.

How do you cut the disks - with a pair of scissors? Also, I am curious... how many blanks do you square if you use it in this way before the sand paper just generates heat?
 
Originally posted by scubaman

Originally posted by stevers
There are several great benefits to milling a blank this way. One being, you can mill a blank up to the diameter of the mill. This is handy for larger pens.
Click to expand...
Hmm... is that unique to this tool? Maybe I'm missing something.. I thought every pen mill could do that ;)

I would have thought the tool is more suited to re-squaring finished barrels after turning.

How do you cut the disks - with a pair of scissors? Also, I am curious... how many blanks do you square if you use it in this way before the sand paper just generates heat?
Click to expand...

The first pen mill I bought had a very small cutter head. It wouldn't do anything over the size of a Euro. The next one I bought was larger but it catches and chatters in certain materials.

Lee has his way of cutting the sand paper circles. I am going to see if I can figure out my own method to save time. It will involve some sort of punches.

Some folks may use this for post turning squaring, but I will often use it for pre turning squaring as well.
 
Wow Steve... I am speachless! Thank you, you said you would post up a photo in use, but this is a full review!

Rich, the pens mills come in 5/8" and 3/4" cutter heads. The problem is that if you have a 5/8" mill there are a few kits that are too big. Even the larger 3/4" head is too smal for a kit like the Panche. The you have the fact that some woods will cause the mill to "hop" if you have a hard spot and a spoft spot like some spalted woods and burls will do. I have seen my mill flatten some high spots on many blanks.

Then the best feature come into play with the CA finish. Many have gone to between centers to apply CA as it does not chip the edges, stick the bushings or cause you to use a razor knife on the blank after all your hard work. Once slip and you start all over!

The sandpaper last's fine as long as you don't chuck it in your drill and hammer it wide open! Nice and slow, even by hand takes it down. I do recomend taking the blank down with a normal pen mill and then use this to flatten the end better when you are close to done.
Mine has only had the paper changed 3 times so far. To replace the paper, I clean the old stuff off and then use a large pen bushing and a 1/4" transfer punch to poke a hole thru a 1" x 1" piece of sandpaper. Stick that on the sander-mill and use sizcors to trim around the pen mill.

For all those who have bought them, I do hope you like how they work. I have only had a couple people get back to me and so far it has all been good. Do feel free to get in touch with me if you think there is any changes that could be made or something you do not like about them. I have thick skin. ;)


And seriously Steve, thanks again... I do appreciate the review!
 
I understand, Lee. I thought such a tool's best use is just as you describe - was a little surprised to see it as a mill-replacement. Again, though - you get reg. cutterheads in different sizes. If you get a 1/2" cutter, you can cut 1/2". If you get a 3/4" cutter, you can cut 3/4" - there is nothing unique there :-) But I do understand the point Steve was trying to make now... you won't get chatter which is an issue with too large a cutterhead, especially if used in a powertool. If used by hand for re-squaring a turned barrel, you don't really care if the paper hangs over a little :-)

If someone uses it the way Steve describes - nothing wrong with that, if it fixes a problem for them.
 
You can use it to mill the whole blank, but I would suggest you cut it down close with a cutter mill to remove most of the material. But I do know that I had a nice acrylic acelate blank that smashed to bits the second a cutter head hit it.

One I get caught up on orders, I plan to make a new pair for myself. One for rough paper and one with a much finer paper for final CA sanding. :D
Then I have a bunch of TBC bushings that I need for myself too! Who am I fooling, heck I have some pen blanks on my wall that I glued tubes in last November!
 
I would think that would be up to you. I believe Lee uses adhesive backed paper. That would be the easiest method. Easier then trying to apply adhesive to a small piece of paper, or applying to a large piece and having it laying around with adhesive on it.


And if I have given anyone the idea that I suggest this is a replacement for your pen mill, that is not my intention. Pen mills will still be usefully in certain applications. I like this tool because I do lot of Sierra's and Cigar's. They have always been difficult for me to mill properly. Like Rich was saying, I have a lot of problems with chatter on larger diameter pieces. And to be honest, I cut the blank as close to the tube as I can with my table saw and blank cutting jig. With it I can get to within a 64th of an inch. Then just sander mill the last little bit.
 
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