After seeing the sanders folks have posted & also having quite a few spalted & burr pen blanks that I've been kindly given by forum members I finally sorted out a sander so I can get on & turn them.
I decided to utilise gear I already had so started with an old 26mm thick MDF sanding disc, this was cleaned up & sanded then attached to the lathe via a face plate. I rigged up a dial gauge to check how true the disc was running.
It was nearly 20 thou out but just a paper shim was enough to bring it within 1.5 thou over a full rotation.
The next piece I wanted was a platform which I already had, I built this a while ago.
It slides between the bed bars, is adjustable up & down & also has an adjustable fence, I use it for quite a few operations including drill segmented blanks accurately.
For the final piece in the jigsaw I pinched Terry's idea, thanks mate, I mounted a chuck on an L shaped bracket, added a couple of oak supports & used a drill bit & engineers square to ensure everything was square to the sanding disc.
Holding the bracket against the fence cleaning up the ends of a blank is child's play.
Really pleased with how this has worked, it very quick & easy to set up so I've no excuses not to turn some spalted pens
I decided to utilise gear I already had so started with an old 26mm thick MDF sanding disc, this was cleaned up & sanded then attached to the lathe via a face plate. I rigged up a dial gauge to check how true the disc was running.
It was nearly 20 thou out but just a paper shim was enough to bring it within 1.5 thou over a full rotation.
The next piece I wanted was a platform which I already had, I built this a while ago.
It slides between the bed bars, is adjustable up & down & also has an adjustable fence, I use it for quite a few operations including drill segmented blanks accurately.
For the final piece in the jigsaw I pinched Terry's idea, thanks mate, I mounted a chuck on an L shaped bracket, added a couple of oak supports & used a drill bit & engineers square to ensure everything was square to the sanding disc.
Holding the bracket against the fence cleaning up the ends of a blank is child's play.
Really pleased with how this has worked, it very quick & easy to set up so I've no excuses not to turn some spalted pens
