pen making mandrels

[bill-s]

hi
I am wanting to try my hand at pen making and wanted to know if a tapered or straight mandrel would be best or if they are equally as good.
:roll:

 

[TEP]

Hi Bill, never seen a tapered pen mandrel, although a lot of the better/larger pen kits are turned between centres, rather than using a mandrel. Most people use a standard straight mandrel, and buy the extra sized bushings when needed. Axminster Tools do a reasonable set, and I believe they sell the additional bushings as well. Axminster pen mandrel

 

[Argee]

... if a tapered or straight mandrel would be best or if they are equally as good.

Perhaps you mean a mandrel with a straight or tapered connection to the lathe? I use a mandrel with a Morse 2 taper to fit my headstock. See here for more detail.

Ray.

 

[Blister]

Bill

You may mean this on axminsters site

800375 Axminster Pen Mandrel - Parallel

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp? ... e=1&jump=0

you can grip it in a chuck and a revolving centre the other end

Allen

:wink:

 

[PowerTool]

..and welcome to the forum,Bill

Andrew

 

[bill-s]

Hi
Thanks for the replies,. When I said tapered or straight mandrel I did mean the fitting to the lathe.
Can anyone suggest the best place to get the pen kits.

Regards
Bill

 

[stevebuk]

hi bill
only turned about a dozen or so pens myself at the moment, but if you visit ebay at type in pen kits, you can get the slim lines for about £1 a set delivered while you learn, moving onto others who sell bigger and better kits, you can also get the bushings on there too.
great fun, enjoy the forum too..

 

[CHJ]

Welcome to the forum Bill, I use a mandrel with a straight shank that fits in my 4 jaw chuck, this avoids having to remove the chuck each time to use the morse taper.
In fact I find that I rarely use the headstock morse taper as drive centres etc. designed to be gripped in the chuck are accurate enough for wood work.

 

[oddsocks]

hi
I am wanting to try my hand at pen making and wanted to know if a tapered or straight mandrel would be best or if they are equally as good.
:roll:

Bill - i think the straight one is specifically for the axminster pen lathe (from memory of a review it had straight not morse taper fitting) or holding in a headstock drillchuck. I can't find the lathe on a search of their webpage so maybe discontinued.

you need to get a mandrel that matches the morse taper of your lathe.

I use this type from stilesandbates as the length can be adjusted (useful if you need to return one half of a pen back to the lathe. It also comes with 'universal' bushes that are tapered to fit into the larger diameter tubes (but i prefer to get the dedicated bushes for these):


http://www.stilesandbates.co.uk/
EDITED URL as it was too long so messed up the view of all posts. From the home page search on mandrel

 

[DaveL]

Hi oddsocks,

Was this where you were trying to link to?

 

[oddsocks]

That's the one - I've forgotten how to make a url appear as you did (i.e the word 'this' rather than the raw url)

 

[oddsocks]

just realised that if I'quote' your original i can see how its done

 

[CHJ]

The Turners Retreat Drill Driver Mandrel System (scroll down the page) is quite flexible if you are on a tight budget.

If you have a 4 jaw chuck you could at a pinch get away with just the shafts and not use the morse taper drivers.