I need assistance drilling acrylic pen blanks on my lathe please!!!!

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usmarine0341

Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2015
Messages
3
Location
Warren Michigan
I am very new to pen turning as well as new to the forum, and thus far I absolutely love it. The problem I am having is that when I advance the drill bit in a little it gets caught, and unscrews the bar inside the tailstock that holds the drilling chuck. I have to back it off, and tighten it back up. It does it every time. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I am going at a slow speed of 400 RPM's, and I do back it off often to get the crud out of the hole. Is my tailstock broken? It is a brand new turncrafter commander from PSI, or am I doing something wrong? Any assistance is very welcomed. Thank you in advance for any tips or information you can provide.

Sincerely,

Joe
 
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Do you mean your drill chuck is coming apart into two pieces or do you mean part of the actual lathe tailstock is pulling out of the tailstock?

Perhaps post a picture of the problem.
 
Thanks for the assistance. I'm not too bright lol. What it turned out to be was I had the knob too loose on the side so the screw was not in the channel on the barrel of the tail stock. with nothing preventing it from spinning it kept getting unscrewed from the turning of the pen jaws. I'm good guys. Now that I figured that out it made drilling on the lathe beyond easy and not the headache it had become!!!!!!! I love drilling on it now. It is incredibly easy and accurate. I do appreciate everyone who tried to help out.

Joe
 
I would have thought that a drill bit in a chuck with a threaded drawbar would tighten, rather than loosen, if it jammed. :confused:

My metal lathe is 1200watts and if a drill jams and siezes up when I've been careless with stainless steel for instance, the lathe stalls the motor. It screams it's liver out, but it's never loosened the chuck.

Let us know when you find the issue please.:wink:
 
A while back, my pen mandrel rod was coming out when sanding the blanks. I tightened by hand and but it didn't last long. I tightened with soft pliers and it still came out. I then cleaned with acetone and there was a lot of crud deep in the female MT and on the rod threads. I used thread loc and hand tightened. It has not come out since. I do not know where the greasy crud came from or how it seeped all the way in. Maybe when using BLO mineral spirits.
 
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