Can anyone tell me where to acquire expansion vises of the type sold many years ago by Dale Clemens?

Fred: You might find these for sale on places like the buy/sell pages on this site, but in my opinion, they might damage the newer graphite blanks that are on the market now. John

Fred: What are you using these vises for?

I use masking tape arbors on Dowels,or blank pieces

This post got me thinking because, if I want to work on a rod over 8 ft. long I have to move my rod lathe and go through a bunch of nonsense because the room is too short.
I went to a Rocklin woodworking store near my house yesterday after reading your post and bought the smallest drum sanding arbors they had.
It measures right at .450 OD without tightening down the expansion nut on the rubber drum.
The rod I'm working on is a Batson RDR 96 MH downrigger rod 2pc. for salmon. The drum sanding arbor is a perfect fit inside the butt of the upper section and makes wrapping great.
Needless to say, I was VERY careful not to put too much pressure on the arbor until after I wrapped the butt of the upper section.
I put 3 progressively larger sizes of plastic tubing over the other end of the arbor, then blue masking tape, and it fits just fine in my lathe.
I HATE moving my rod lathe around, disturbing everything on my bench, knocking stuff over, etc., or even worse heading for the dining room with it for a really long rod.

Fred: Thank you very much for getting me thinking about this problem.
Jon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 12:03PM by Jon Gold.

Jon -
I think what you may be looking for were based on Rawl or Hilti bolts. I used them a long time ago but found that short segments of blanks worked better for me. Here's a link to one type:

[www.warwickhanger.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 12:28PM by Ken Preston.

Ken:
You are right, short sections of various blanks are probably the best.
I guess I better start accumulating them.
Until then, I'm happy with these tiny sanding drum arbors, especially since they are expandable and have a rubber outer surface on the drum.
Come to think of it, I bet the Dremel tool uses similar drums that may work.
Thanks,
Jon

If you are using the expansion v ises for holding a blank, try a solid blank, or solid metal rod. If necessary, use masking tape to build up the rod to make a nice fit on the inside of the blank.

For smaller blanks, I simply chuck the solid rod into my drill and spin the solid blank against the belt sander to taper the end of the blank material to fit nicely inside the blank.

I do this all of the time after gluing up cork rings on a blank and then spin the built up blank - handle to shape the handle while the rod is spinning.

If I need to turn a blank without a handle on it to stiffen the butt section, I will take a few wraps of masking tape around the end of the blank, to avoid splitting out the end of the blank.

I have several cups of various sized blanks, both bare as well as some built up with masking tape to handle a large variety of blank sizes.

Simple and effective.

p.s.
One of the most effective blanks that I found was a piece of solid fiberglass rod material that was laying along side of the rod. Apparently it was a cast off from some construction job. I took my chop saw and chopped it up into 6 inch lenghts and have used it to make many different sized pieces for internal blank work.

Roger

I have a long cardboard tube that I put all scrap blank pieces in. When needed I I check it for scrap pieces to fit a blank. Good to have.
Solid glass blanks are cheap and are tapered.

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks to all. That gives me plenty to work with.