Thread: RIP pen contributions

Here is a link to the Vermec page with his collet chucks, I got the ER32 set, it comes with the full set of collets, the spanner, and I got a wooden box for the collets, though it doesn’t show that in the photos.
Collet Adaptor Sets ER32 & ER25
It might sound expensive, but if you are going to get into penturning seriously, over time you will realise it worthwhile purchase. As long as your lathe spindle doesn’t have any run-out, this chuck will give you very good accuracy.
You can get cheaper collet chucks on eBay and aliexpress, but they will have a MT drive, when I was looking for mine, the Vermec was the best value for a chuck that will screw onto a spindle thread. Someone else might be able to give you other options, but if your are willing to spend the $160 to $173 this will get you started, and set you up for many other options later on.

Originally Posted by Penpal

Of my VL100 and VL150 pics,the VL100 is 1inch 10 thread.

Peter.

That's an interesting live centre in the tailstock, very slender at the tip. Is it like a mandrel saver in that it is hollow for the mandrel to go through?

Originally Posted by Ironwood

That would be the best and most accurate way for penturning, put a mandrel shaft into a collet a few spacers and away you go.
I made a 8mm mandrel that is held in my collet chuck, made some bushes to suit on my metal lathe, that thing is rock solid, no vibration or out of round problems, I don’t use it anymore since I started turning between centres.

Brad, can you explain what the advantages are of turning between centres as quite a few people seem to do that. Apart from the obvious advantage of the outside running true to the bore is there something else I am missing? Do you run the sleeve directly on the taper of the centres or do you use sizing bushes between the blanks and centres?

Originally Posted by Treecycle

Brad, can you explain what the advantages are of turning between centres as quite a few people seem to do that. Apart from the obvious advantage of the outside running true to the bore is there something else I am missing? Do you run the sleeve directly on the taper of the centres or do you use sizing bushes between the blanks and centres?

Dallas, I use the conventional bushes( that you would normally use on a mandrel) between the centres to rough turn the blanks down until about 1mm oversize. Then I run the brass tube directly between the centres to do the last few final cuts, sanding and finishing. I use the bushes at the start to do the bulk of the blank removal, because it’s easy to put too much load on the contact between centres and brass tube and cause wear, or flaring of the brass tube.

Turning between centres like this takes away most of the causes of out of round blanks, which gives you all sorts of problems when trying to put a good ca finish on, and looks unsightly. You just have to make sure you do a good job of squaring up the ends of your tubes, or you will still get out of round issues.
Out of round blanks, are the biggest cause of ‘sand throughs) in your ca finish, if you are getting little dull patches when you are sanding your ca, more than likely it’s caused by out of round blanks, it doesn’t take much to cause you problems.

I do the same as Brad does except I turn a little closer than a millimeter from the bushings. Some kit suppliers provide turn between bushings as standard but those without the 60* cones work just as well.

Pete

So the small contact point between the drive centre and the 1/4" hole in the bush provides enough friction to turn the blank against the chisel when starting from the square shape at the beginning?
When applying CA I always finish off the blanks between centres to ensure the outside runs true but rough turn them on the mandrel.

Dallas

Originally Posted by Treecycle

So the small contact point between the drive centre and the 1/4" hole in the bush provides enough friction to turn the blank against the chisel when starting from the square shape at the beginning?

Dallas

Yes it is. Same goes for acrylics, cast and tube in castings too.

Pete

Yes they work OK, if it starts to spin, just put a bit more pressure on with the tailstock, you will soon work out how much you can hog off with each pass, if it’s catching and making the drive spin on the bush, just lighten your cut a bit.

Double post

Pen turner reporting in. Like so many others, been busy and not reading through the forums.

First pen in years - made a Roman Harvest to match the knife handle my daughter is making.
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I have been absent due to work. As others have said you can have views of 1K and get 3 comments. On some of the American pages if you aren't a part of the in crowd of pen crafters you hardly get any response at all. The reason I was away for so long before was due to a few figjams. Was afraid I was going to say how I felt, so I walked away.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

Arose62, that's Vereeeee nice! And if it's the first one in a long time, you certainly haven't lost your touch.

Originally Posted by Gary H

Arose62, that's Vereeeee nice! And if it's the first one in a long time, you certainly haven't lost your touch.

Thanks, maybe not my touch, but definitely a couple of drill bits, a bush, and my large mandrel shaft.

Ended up wrapping my wrong size pen mill in hand towel to adapt it to the tubes Paper towel bushings might be the next big thing !?!

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