7/7/2011 I was doing It Wrong

So i have only been pen turning for about a year now. well a couple of months ago i got a pen kit that my brother and Dad wanted me to make for them. Well i made the first one form my brother, it cam out wobbly. Well that was the day i found out there there are 2 different sizes on mandrel an type A and a Type B. I need the Type B stile for the pen kit.

So the next time i went down to thew Rockler store and pick me up a Type B mandrel with a morse taper end to go in to my head stock of the lathe. I got back to SA and went to work on My Dads pen Man did it bounce around. But i got i made and realized that i did not like the morse tape mandrel because it moved a lot and kept coming out of the head stock.

about a week or so ago i bent my current mandrel and got out the morse taper mandrel again. thinking i was just not getting it in the headstock all the way. still had the same issue with it bouncing out.

This time i went for some help and headed down to the local WoodCraft and asked what was i doing wrong. i was told that the tails stock needs to be used to hold the mandrel in place. I told Luis that my mandrel had no place for the head stock to be put in. he thought that was strange and sold me a replacement piece. to fist that issue.

I get home last night and and tired the piece he sold me, it not not fit in to my mandrel, but i turn the same piece i was replacing over and low and behold there was a place for my tail stock to go.

So this weekend i have to get out to the garage and turn on my properly put together mandrel.

Thanks

Sam