I need some help, I got some metal stuck in this woodturning mandrel due to a mistake I made while setting up the wood lathe. Basically it should look like the mandrel on the left of this picture and the one on the right is the one I got the metal stuck in. It’s not totally hollow, it just needs to have that small indent in it so it can be held by the live center, but the metal is really jammed in there and I couldn’t get it out. Is it possible to fix this by either getting the metal out or putting a new indent into it?
I’ll be there to give a tour about 1 saturday so probably available by 1:45. We can face it off and drill a new center hole on the metal lathe.
Randy
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I’m not the best person to ask as I really know how to use a hammer (welder) and so this looks like a nail to me.
I would probably:
- chuck it up in the lathe
- drill out all of the metal that isn’t the original metal.
- Fill the hole with some TIG filler metal, getting it all the way back to flush
- Chuck it back up in the lathe
- Face it off so it’s smooth
- Add whatever indent/hole/etc starting with a centering drill
@rlisbona knows what he’s doing though so if that all sounds like a lot, I’d beg help off him lol.
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Do you know what metal is stuck in there now?
Is the inside of the mandrel threaded by any chance?
In either case, it may be good to try drilling a small hole in the foreign material and using a bolt extractor to back it out?
No I don’t. Basically what I did was I accidentally used a dead center when I meant to use a live center so what’s stuck in this mandrel is the tip of the dead center
That would be awesome if you could help me do that. I’m not signed off on the metal lathe but I will happily assist you in any way I can, I will send you a PM
It’s been about 10 years since I’ve turned a pen but Im pretty sure that is the non-driven end of the mandrel and just needs a center hole for the live center. And if we need to face off 1/16" before redrilling the center hole it will work just fine. I love Malcolm’s method that would preserve the original but non critical length and I myself do sometimes add extra steps to a repair that I probably could have skipped, but it did make me laugh to think about tig welding that tiny hole, which lead to thinking about several ways that could go wrong and imagining how I would explain screwing up such a simple repair. Nope.
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In that case, its likely soft material from what it looks like. It could be drilled out pretty easily
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