I've always just glued the rings to the blank and turned the blank.When using a mandrel do you just glue the cork to a steel rod,and then turn the cork while on the steel mandrel?How do you get it off ? Tap the mandrel with a hammer while in the cork press?Are there any advantages other than not worrying about damaging the blank?Thanks for your help.....................Kyle

Uno mas,what's the best size and material?

Don't know how the others do it, but my mandrels are threaded on each end. I glue up my rings and put the nuts and washers on each end and tighten them up as necessary. When set, I just put the mandrel in my lathe and turn and sand. Then take them off and do the final reaming. Use some wax or something on the mandrel to keep the epoxy from sticking to it.

Ray Alston
Goldrush Rods

well back n the day i would just epoxy rings stright to the blank and then turn all my cork then.. now i can buy better grade finished cork and i dont mess with glue up... the mandral gives you a couple added steps but its a littel safer first you need to wax the mandral before glue up so u can remove the grip and u should use someware between 7/16-1/2 " inch nice and stable for
chucking in a lathe if your doing small dia blank work i.e. 1/4-3/8" adjust mandral size of course ...if you scrap a grip on the mandral no biggie but u scrap on the blank BIG OOPS ....
lots of extra work. in my opinion reaming the grip is a pain period. and a sharp blow by a hammer will help remove grip from mandral "do not hit grip and remember a steel hammer will deform your mandral i.e chucking problems later on" hope this helps ....John T Burford aka Tightline Rod's

Smooth steel mandrels such as drill rod are excellent and usually very, very straight. If you do not have a lathe capable of handling the entire length of rod, mandrels allow you turn on just about any sort of wood or metal lathe.

Coat the mandrel with paraffin wax prior to gluing your rings on. They will stay put while turning and afterwards you can "pop" the grip off the mandrel without any trouble.

If you do a search on this topic you find will find tons of info from previous discussions here.

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