I'm new to rod building, so have a lot of basic questions. This one has to do with chucking a blank in the lathe. What is the proper way. The printed material that came with the Renzetti lathe says the best way is to use an expansion vise. What is an expansion vise and where do you get one? Any info on the subject will sure be appreciated and I'm sure this won't be the last of my questions. Thanks for your help.

Frank Willis
Owensboro, Ky.

The simplest thing to do is just get some sections of scrap blank and insert one that fits closely into the butt of the blank you want to chuck. Put a few wraps of masking tape around the butt of the scrap piece to keep it from slipping in the smooth chuck jaws.

If the scrap piece isn't an exact fit, shim fore or aft with a bit of tape.

..............

Frank,
If you are chucking the bare blank into a wrapper setup - i.e. with no grip glued on the blank, I suggest that YOU NEVER EVER chuck a bare blank into any sort of chuck on a wrapper or lathe.

There is just a huge risk from crushing, if you chuck a bare blank into any sort of chuck.

Rather, Use a piece of solid blank material - graphite, fiber glass or similar.

One very good source of solid blank material, if you don't have any on hand would be to go to your local hard ware store and pick up an inexpensive driveway marker.

[www.lowes.com]

or
[www.fleetfarm.com]

Or, if you want, I could drop ship a bunch of cut off solid blanks that I have left over from chopping longer blanks.

If the solid blank is too large to insert into the hollow new blank, just cut off a section of blank - say 5 inches or so. Then, chuck the cut off solid blank into a variable speed drill. Then, if you have a power sander, just hold the spinning solid blank against the power sander, or grind stone. Sand or grind down the end of the blank into a long taper, so that you have a nice tapered fit for the inside of the blank.

If the blank is larger than the unmodified piece of solid blank material, just use masking tape to build up the end of the solid blank, so that you have a friction fit on the inside of the new rod blank, from the fit of the masking tape on the inside of the blank.
I normally use two or three rows of masking tape to make the taper longer and to give more length to the taper for an even better hold on the inside of the new blank.

Now, just take the chuck that is on your new lathe, place the solid blank into the chuck and tighten it down - nice and tight.
Then, when you are ready to spin the new blank, first take masking tape and place about 4 or 5 wraps around the very butt of the rod blank. The masking tape eliminates any cracking from happening to the new blank. Then,, simply slip the new blank over the correctly sized tapered solid blank that is inserted into the wrapper chuck.

You will never crush the blank, because there is no crushing force on the outside of the blank.
You will never split the blank, because the masking tape acts in the same way as a rod joint thread wrap, to correctly hold all parts of the blank together without damage.

By the way, the recent video that I just sent you, illustrates the use of a solid blank inserted into a chuck for illustration purposes.

Be safe \

Frank, Now that the Holidays are upon us I'm sure there will be alot of corks popping to celebrate the season. Save those CORKS !!! Put them in the mivowave for about 30 to 45 seconds to get them back to their orignal shape. Now they are ready to use. Put them in your lathe and drill a center hole in the cork to snuggly fit the blank you are going to wrap. You can tighten the jaws of your chuck onto the cork without fear of crushing the blank. I use this for ultra lite blanks and in my drying stands as arbors around the blank.

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)