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Accurate mandrels

Bob Ellis

Bob Ellis

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The only mandrels I have used are those made by Planet....and I am not impressed! I have two of them and the diameters vary between the two. A more serious fault is that they are both undersized, which results in there being a certain amount of play between the bushes and the mandrel. This necessities time-consuming corrective work to ensure that the completed blanks are round and that the wood is an even thickness around the brass tube. Is there a better quality mandrel available than those produced by Planet?
 
B

Bigblackdog

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it depends how accurate you need them to be. for high accuracy, a piece of silver steel in a collet chuck and make your own mandrels. doesn't cost much if you already have a collet chuck, but is rather expensive if you don't.

very useful things though, collet chuck...
 
Grump

Grump

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Bigblackdog said:
it depends how accurate you need them to be. for high accuracy, a piece of silver steel in a collet chuck and make your own mandrels. doesn't cost much if you already have a collet chuck, but is rather expensive if you don't.

very useful things though, collet chuck...
Click to expand...

And make bushes to fit and a mandrel saver to fit.
Then the prats who make the kits retool and change their diameters or change supplier and get different stock init?
I am not sure an accurate mandrel is such an easy thing to achieve nor would I want one.
Far better quicker easier and cheaper to TBC init?
 
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Bigblackdog

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make your own mandrel- i actually meant bushes. but i hear what you are saying though Brian.

with the hassles of kits (quality and compatibility between batches), cartridges that may or may not fit, bushes, mandrels and such like, i am planning to mainly make kitless when I use up my current kits. If you have to spend £7+ to get something reasonable, i would rather spend that on a nib and feed. It does limit the possibilities for wooden pens though.
 
Jim

Jim

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I agree a collet type pen mandrel and mandrel saver is as good as you are going to get Bob ..
 
rayf6604

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I have a planet deluxe mandrel and I changed the shaft for a piece of 1/4 in steel rod. This fits the collet fine but then I used 120 grit sand paper to sand the shaft down in diameter to fit most of my bushes. If you sort your bushes into the various internal diameter, if you find you have variations then you could group them and do a shaft for each one. The rod is only a few pounds off ebay and I found it solved all my problems of slack bushes. Thanks to Terry who shared this with me a while ago :thumbs:

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk
 
Bob Ellis

Bob Ellis

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I've begun to look for an alternative adjustable mandrel to the Planet de Luxe, which I don't rate. I see that Dan does one for £15.00 and Axminster does one for almost £37. Does anyone who has used one know if the Axminster is worth the extra money or whether it is a rip off? I would define 'worth the extra money' as being better constructed to finer tolerances.

I was hoping to buy a mandrel saver at the same time, but the tailstock of my Sherline lathe has a #0 Morse taper and, as far as I can see, nobody seems to make one that would fit my Sherline lathe.... unless, of course, anybody knows any different!
 
Jim

Jim

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I can't talk for Dan's as i haven't used one, i have the Axminster one, used it for over two years now with the same shaft using a mandrel saver ..
 
Lons

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Bob Ellis said:
I've begun to look for an alternative adjustable mandrel to the Planet de Luxe, which I don't rate. I see that Dan does one for £15.00 and Axminster does one for almost £37. Does anyone who has used one know if the Axminster is worth the extra money or whether it is a rip off? I would define 'worth the extra money' as being better constructed to finer tolerances.

I was hoping to buy a mandrel saver at the same time, but the tailstock of my Sherline lathe has a #0 Morse taper and, as far as I can see, nobody seems to make one that would fit my Sherline lathe.... unless, of course, anybody knows any different!
Click to expand...

I assume it's the Axi evolution which includes a mandrel saver. I have one Bob bought with a gift token I was given. I had to return the first one as it wasn't true but the replacement is better though I don't think it's 100%. Would I buy it again? - no.
 
Bob Ellis

Bob Ellis

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As far as I can see, it would have to the Axminster de Luxe because, unfortunately, I don't think the mandrel saver in the Evolution would fit the #0 Morse taper in my tailstock. :sob:
 
A

ataylor

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I dont have a mandrel, the few pens i have made i turned between centers no out of balace this way.
 
chas_41_uk

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Jim said:
I can't talk for Dan's as i haven't used one, i have the Axminster one, used it for over two years now with the same shaft using a mandrel saver ..
Click to expand...

Lons said:
I assume it's the Axi evolution which includes a mandrel saver. I have one Bob bought with a gift token I was given. I had to return the first one as it wasn't true but the replacement is better though I don't think it's 100%. Would I buy it again? - no.
Click to expand...

I've got two Axminster mandrels.
The first one I bought was this one
I wasn't very impressed as apart from the 7mm Axmister bushes most bushes seemed loose on it.
So I bought the Axmister Deluxe Adjustable Pen Mandrel
This doesn't seem much better.

The next pen I turn will be between centres to see if that is any better
 
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