I'm sure somebody already thought of this, but in searching the archives I only found reference to using pieces of allthread (not very striaght or easy to chuck), or the smooth mandrels that require you to epoxy the stock to the mandrel for turning.

I found a pen turning mandrel at the local Woodcraft store that has a #2 Mose Taper on one end, and a 7mm mandrel. The mandrel is threaded for about 1inch on one end to accept a knurled nut and has a tapered hole in the end to fit the spur on the live center. Also in the pen turning section, they had a whole bunch of bushing that have a 7mm bore and various outside diameters to fit all the diferent syles of pen inserts. I got some that were close to 3/8", chucked them up and filed them down in the lathe to fit snugly in a 3/8" bore hole. Bore the wood stock, push the bushings in, slide some spacers on the mandrel (the compression nut that comes with the mandrel wont grab hard enough) followed by the seat and bushings, then screw the end nut down nice and tight. Stays put really well if you don't try to take off a half inch at a time. If it comes loose, just tighen the nut. No epoxy needed and much easier to use than all thread. You could even get several sets of bushings in different diameters if you needed to bore for different size rods. They also had a mandrel that allowed the shaft to slide into the MT end and tighten down to vary the length of the mandrel. That would have been the better way to go, less length=less flex, but the one I got seems to work fine and was ten bucks cheaper.

The whole setup cost me 10 bucks for the mandrel, and 5 for the bushings and a very little elbow grease. Here's the link [www.woodcraft.com]

Andy Dear's new manuals are like that. They come in all of the sizes of his regular mandrels. They are awesome. Like great big pen mandrels I know that he's busy moving but maybe if he see's this, he'll post a pix. They aren't on his web site yet

Mike

Hi Brian,
I'll have the new mandrels up on the website in the next few days. We unveiled them at the Charlotte show, and I think I sold almost every one of them I had! Thye really do expedite the manufacture of reelseats on the lathe. I have been toying with this design for a couple of years, but finally found the time to bring it to light here recently.

keep an eye on the webpage as there will be lots of updates over the next several weeks.

Andy Dear
Lamar Manf.

Andy:
Please send me your web site address, I am intrested in your mandrels.

Thank
Rich Kline

Rich,

There's a link on the left. He's a sponsor (and a heck of guy who carries "service" to the extreme!!) Lamar Reel Seats

Mike



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2005 09:16PM by Mike Barkley.

Andy,

Could these mandrels be used in a drill press to turn also?

Bill in WV

Brian, I recently purchased a set of mandrels from Andy and they work like a charm. I have now turned 3 complete ultra light spinning handles and one fly rod handle with matching barrell real seat. Every one of the center holes remained true. He gives great service! Lon

I have those pen turning mandrels and setup for turning pens. They would be fine for small grips but for something a bit large (bass, pike, muskie rods) the pen turning mandrels aren't that usefull. Andy's mandrels (old style) are just the ticket. When I received mine I just purchased a couple of collars and use those to lock the glued up blanks on the mandrel. I use pieces of threaded rod, covered with masking tape and parafin, for gluing up blanks. When dried and knock them off and mount them to the mandrel; a fairly painless procedure.

Andy's new mandrels aren't pen mandrels. They are basically the same as the old ones except they have one ended threaded and a collar and shims, so that the grip can be slid against the collar and the threaded nut can then be tightened against the other end of the grip locking it into place. Pretty simple and effective



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2005 05:37PM by Mike Barkley.