Thread: Drilling blanks

Greg,

I also use a drill press and self centering vice, however I do not need to keep re-setting the height of my drill press table. Maybe you just need to find the ultimate height and set it. I move the blanks up and down slightly in the vice to accommodate. I do however use drills from a set and they are fairly close in length too.
I have used the lathe to drill my blanks also with a chuck at the head stock to hold the blank and a quick release drill chuck with taper in my tail stock. It did work a treat and is always on centre, but for me as I only have the one lathe ment I had to keep changing things when I wanted to the turn pens, so I stick with the drill press and self centering vice

Just my thoughts and experiences
Cheers
Tony.

I use the lathe with a 4 jaw chuck and jacobs chuck. I used to use my drill press but as I collect most of my own burls and other bits for blanks and am not too flash about squaring it up I find it easier to centre the holes on the lathe. It does mean changing over from mandrels and live centre to the chucks but have it all close at hand and takes but seconds.

I also use the lathe to press the pen parts together using morse tapers from old mandrels fitted with wooden ends for different applications. cheers Des

hey greg
amos aka woodenink posted a thred only a few weeks ago https://www.woodworkforums.com/f69/on...stions-149315/
check out his post on page 2 #30 it shows the setup i have as it only has 2 jaws
it doesnt matter if rectangle or odd shape
well worth the money in that thread it also gives links to suppliers

Thanks all. I looked at Amos' post. I will do some follow up with McJing.

greg

Originally Posted by plantagenon

Thanks all. I looked at Amos' post. I will do some follow up with McJing.

greg

greg thats what i got and recommended it to amos trust me its worth it !!

Thanks Troy

I have sent an email to them to find out what other attachements I need to use it on my lathe.

Greg

Dedicated Pen Blank Drilling Chuck at Penn State Industries


Best money you can spend. Drilling on the lathe is the way to go. As far as changing things many times you need to do things as an assembly line if you want efficiency. I have had all kinds of problems with 4 jaw chucks trying to line things up and it is not worth the effort. These chucks are made for what we do. The only thing better is if you can use a collet chuck but the size and shape of the blank may not allow this.

Thanks JT

I am making some enquiries about costs with a company in Australia. PSI has some great gear but their shipping costs to Australia is very high. I also have to get a chuck that will take a 14.5mm drill bit or get a recess cut into the bit.

Greg

Greg you can get chucks that will take 16mm bits , but almost all drills can be turned to a smaller dia to fit say a 1/2 inch chuck. The shank of the drills are not hardened ,but are usually high tensile ,even on high speed drill bits . Always something else comes along just when you think you have it all under control cheers ~ John

John

I have had a look at a few sites but haven't been able to find any chuck with a MT2 taper attached that will take more than 13mm. I will keep searching and see what I can come up with. Otherwise as you said I will have to take my drill bits to a machine shop and have them reduced to fit 13mm.

Greg

Greg, there are any number of tooling supply companies that can supply 5/8"-16mm chucks
eg CDCO has one for $US28 or a keyed 5/8" chuck for $US16

Attachment 205487

As you can from that page their keyless 5/8 chuck takes a J6 taper, so if we go a bit further down that page and look for a J6-MT2 arbor wefind they cost all of $US5.00

Attachment 205488

Haven't checked McJing but I'm sure that they will have the same chucks and arbors, or indeed Hare and Forbes.

Edit: Here is a 16mm keyless chuck at H&F

C294 | Drill Chuck - Keyless Type | machineryhouse.com.au

The arbor

D442A | 2MT x JT3 Drill Chuck Arbor | machineryhouse.com.au

McJIng keyless 16mm chuck

http://www.mcjing.com.au/categorybro...categoryid=170

B18 arbor is $12 a bit further down the page

Looks well covered Fred hehe ! Just to confuse here's some with a quick search on E-Pay
Cheers ~ John

Very well covered thanks.

I have found a few places in England in the last half hour of Google searching with one on ebay. I am still waiting to hear back from McJing as I had to send them the spindle thread size. I imagine they will get back to me tomorrow. I am having a look at the other sites you suggested.

Thanks again
Greg

[QUOTE=plantagenon;1473511]Another question to the wise and experienced.

I have been using a drill press and a blank drilling centre vice to hold the blanks while drilling. Problem is that because the bits are all different lenghts, I have had to put varying thicknesses of timber blocks under the vice to adjust the height from the base.

Hi Greg. Doesn't your drill press have a winder to raise and lower the table height ?.
That drilling jig that JT posted looks great !. I'm almost tempted to send away to get one myself, haha. Saving my 'dosh' for the Wood Show in Brisbane to have a splurge