Dremel Attachment for lathe

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aggromere

aggromere

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I would like to drill a few holes in some pens and put little dots of silver or gold in them. I really dont want to drill all the way through a pen blank and fill it. Anyway when I turn the pen no guarantee exactly where the dots would show up.

Is there an attachment to a jet vs mini (with indexing) that I could use a dremel to drill a small pocket or hole in a nearly finished pen blank.

Pool cue makers have a thing like that for doing certain kind of work but it only goes on a specific custom built lathe and is very expensive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. What I'm trying to do is put equally spaced dots near the center band of some pens kinda like the rank insignia on the star trek uniforms. I know that's weird, but what the heck.
 
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Just build up a little platform that sits on the bed of the lathe that allows the dremel to be held with its point at the center of the turning. Notch out a piece of wood to hold the dremel flat on the platform. Drill away. I wish I had a picture but I only saw someone do it in a demo, I haven't done it myself. Good luck
 
PSI has a predrilled disc that will fit a 1x8 heqadstock to get your holes in right location..then use your rest to draw lines with a pencil..then use rest to hold your drill...I think that would work...I've done flutes like that
 
aggromere said:
I would like to drill a few holes in some pens and put little dots of silver or gold in them. I really dont want to drill all the way through a pen blank and fill it. Anyway when I turn the pen no guarantee exactly where the dots would show up.

Is there an attachment to a jet vs mini (with indexing) that I could use a dremel to drill a small pocket or hole in a nearly finished pen blank.

Pool cue makers have a thing like that for doing certain kind of work but it only goes on a specific custom built lathe and is very expensive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. What I'm trying to do is put equally spaced dots near the center band of some pens kinda like the rank insignia on the star trek uniforms. I know that's weird, but what the heck.
Click to expand...

Some of the pool cue tools are stand alone, but they tend to run a bit more than the ones that go on their lathes. (a pantograph)
John, I may ahve an indexing wheel, but don't have the pin part to locate with. If you would want to make that yourself, I'll send the wheel to ya. I used wome wood once to make a type of sled tohold my dremel to try something like that. A little 'V' in the piece to locate the Dremel, and cut some 2 bys to get the height, then just slid it forward to drill a bit. One of those things that has ended up on the back burner, but.....
 
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Are you looking for something like this?

It is made to fit a taig style tool post..

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Yea i have a jet lathe and I dont think i can fit it. That picture is the cue lathe cutting rings.
 
sketch

Just thought I would go ahead a attach the sketch here. It doesn't show the bolt needed to attach to the lathe bed, but shurely...........! I will make mine about 24" long with the dremel about 18" from the back. I am sure it would need to be that long, but my mind pictures the arc of the tool and.......well, any way. I figured the bolt on the end would allow for depth adjusting, and the spring so the tool would stay up while indexing. Let me know what you think!
 

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I guess if you have a big enough drill press, you could also just make a board base that the lathe will fit on and move it to the drill press table. Would be a lug to move the lathe around too many times though! I made an indexing fixture some time ago for a guy to use on his drill press, not sure how it worked for him, may have to find out.
 
You could! If you just wanted four places around the pen or center band, just drill them while the stock is still square. Not to mention spacing them down the barrel as well.
 
With the cross slide and the "gadget" that Skip Rat came up with that had a small index wheel that had about 5 or 6 holes would make a pretty decent rig.

On Edit

Look at this http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=39683&highlight=simple+pen+mill

With the cross slide and a similar rig up the indexing and the drill spacing could be controlled. Might want a higher dollar cross slide than the Harbor Freight version, but I would say it would be a pretty good beginners choice.
 
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How about one of these for the drill press. Get the 5c collet to hold the mandrel. Currnet price at Enco is just under $50, but they go on sale now and then for around $30-35. Could also check cdco.com.
 

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