Greetings all,
I am a hobbyist woodturner, and to date i have made mostly pens, with a couple of artistic firewood pieces. I have always had a hard time squaring up my pen blanks. I started with the Peach Tree Pen Mill (ptreeusa.com/turn_projects_pen_reamer.html) and that worked OK, but in order to get it to drill I really had to lean into the drill, and would routinely get the brass tube protruding past the wood. I was doing standard slimline pen kits. So I decided at one point that I wanted to buy my way out of the problem, and bought the WoodPecker's Ultra-Shear Pen Mill Ci (https://www.woodpeck.com/ultra-shear...l-inserts.html). I tried it on a piece of figured wood, and it immediately ripped a huge chunk off and exposed half the brass tube. I figured it wasn't good for figured wood, and tried it on a piece of orange tree branch, and with very mild pressure on the tool, it immediately digs, giving me a very uneven blank end. Part of the reason I went with the Woodpecker's kit was because they have 13 different reamer sizes so I could do everything I could to eliminate slop.
I'm at a loss for what to do. This seems like the most basic part of pen turning, and for the life of me I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. Any thoughts? Does anybody have the Woodpecker's Pen Mill, do you like it or hate it?
Thanks all and happy 4th!