Has anyone use bolts say 0.25 to 0.375 diameter for mandrels. My first effort to use them on 6-8 inch long bolts which I drilled an 1/8 of an inch dia. hole in the head of the bolt. I then tightened down th wood with the nut, placing the threaded end in the drive chuck of my lathe and the head of the bolt in the hole of the live center. I have encoutered problems with Andy Dear's mandrels because they were too long and I got all sorts of wobbleing. I might be nuts but comments would be appreciated.

Ed Smith

I am presently using 12" long 3/8" and 5/16" allthread in a powerdrill as a lathe so you are already way better set up then me. Wobbling (oscillation) usually means that the mandrel is bent (which given Andy's Rep is a stretch) or your bed is not true. SOMETHING is out of balance. The would not be any oscillation it everything was true and plumb. It has been quite a while since I worked on anything other than a hobby level lathe though.

Wish I could help more.



Derek L. McMaster
Rohnert Park, CA

Born to Fish, FORCED to Work

Ed,
Every mandrel I make is run through 2 diferent lathes here in my shop at the full 18" length to make sure they're straight. I actually discard about 20%-30% of the ones I make because they're not straight. Every now and then one slips through, but not often. I doubt the mandrels are not straight, and if they are crooked it's because of incorrect use or perhaps damage in shipping...which does happens occasionally.


By the way,....bolts are not nearly as straigh as drill rod is. Are you sure your headstcok and tailstock are in alignment? What kind of lathe are you using?


Andy Dear
Lamar Fishing

Ed,

What diameter mandrel??? Can't you push any unused part of the mandrel through the chuck out the back of the head stock?? What kind of lathe do you have? Does your headstock and tailstock line up perfectly? Andy can make a mandrel any length that you need. I can't imagine it being the madrel, though. Did it by any chance get bent?

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Ed,

I use a Jet Mini with Andy's mandrels (length to fit the lathe) and have had no problem what-so-ever with the mandrels, only with operator error from time to time. I have, however, used very short bolts in the lathe to turn very narrow things like butt caps.

Stan

Thanks for the comments! I've beenusing a 6" bolt 1/4 dia. and an 8" bolt 3/8 inch diameter. I need to check the aligment of the head and tailstock on my lathe. I suspect that may be the problem.

Ed Smith

Ed, what are you using for a Chuck? I have a Oneway 2436 lathe with a decent live center and a Oneway Stronghold 4-jaw chuck. That setup is great for turning wood but I noticed some wobble due to using a 4-jaw chuck. 4-jaw chucks really aren't set up to center mandrels. I kind of fixed the wobble by using shim stock on the jaw faces to better center the mandrel and use a spindle steady if needed. The fix, in my case, was to start using a 3-jaw chuck which is better suited for holding round stock like mandrels. I recently purchased a 3-jaw chuck from Grizzly and had an adapter machined to fit my lathe, now all wobble is gone. If you need some short mandrels just pick up some drill stock from MSC, McMaster-Carr, or your local machine shop supply and cut one to fit. Or, you can run one of Andy's mandrels into the headstock to shorten it up, or run it long and place a spindle steady near the end.