Carbide mandrels

customcuelathe

customcuelathe

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Well as many might already know making the carbide mandrels was a big learning curve, so that resulted in a my entire first batch deemed unsalable. Until my friend Neil suggested selling them, as a do it your own project.
Those mandrels are all grounded perfectly and faced of perfectly too. All is required to make them a usable set is a new pin and a new female insert installed on them.
That should be an easy task for any experienced cue maker. I will be selling the sets for $125 each
There are a variety of sizes available.
After the pins are installed and if you require a minor ground I will help out with that too for a very small fee
I have 16 sets available. And those sets are tapered too
Regards
Bassel
248-884-4469
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Sorry, I must be a little slow or maybe my diction is too keen. It took me a couple times but I think I got it.

Please correct me if I am wrong. At first I thought you were selling blanks (without inserts or pins) but the picture didn't match up. So these must be the mandrels that did not work out. So you are selling them and then we need to rework them... cut off the pins and bore out the inserts and replace them. Correct?

I swear, I am not trying to be facetious here.

I was a machinist for a long time but its been a while. We had a saying in the shop "when you start out with s*** you end up with s***". Basically, if you mess something up start over.

Can someone explain to me how I would rework them? Removing the pins and inserts isn't a big deal but how would I recreate and install the pins and inserts and ensure they stay on center and true? Making the mandrels from the beginning seems easy enough. I figure the threads are the hard part. But pressing in a pin or insert and holding it true seems at least a challenge.... especially since the other dimensions are already to size.

Bassel, if you would, hold me a set of 5/16-14. If I can find out how to fix them without mumbling to myself "down the road not across the tracks" I'll take a set.

I have a close friend who's an outstanding machinist/engineer so maybe I'll ask him after he gets the tree off his house. I just have a feeling he going to reference the above quote.
 
bruppert said:
Sorry, I must be a little slow or maybe my diction is too keen. It took me a couple times but I think I got it.

Please correct me if I am wrong. At first I thought you were selling blanks (without inserts or pins) but the picture didn't match up. So these must be the mandrels that did not work out. So you are selling them and then we need to rework them... cut off the pins and bore out the inserts and replace them. Correct?

I swear, I am not trying to be facetious here.

I was a machinist for a long time but its been a while. We had a saying in the shop "when you start out with s*** you end up with s***". Basically, if you mess something up start over.

Can someone explain to me how I would rework them? Removing the pins and inserts isn't a big deal but how would I recreate and install the pins and inserts and ensure they stay on center and true? Making the mandrels from the beginning seems easy enough. I figure the threads are the hard part. But pressing in a pin or insert and holding it true seems at least a challenge.... especially since the other dimensions are already to size.

Bassel, if you would, hold me a set of 5/16-14. If I can find out how to fix them without mumbling to myself "down the road not across the tracks" I'll take a set.

I have a close friend who's an outstanding machinist/engineer so maybe I'll ask him after he gets the tree off his house. I just have a feeling he going to reference the above quote.
Click to expand...
You are right, the only thing wrong with those pins right now is that the pins are that the male pins are undersized therefore when grounded between centers as a set, it resulted with a concentric shaft and carbide, but not the pins, also some of them where not faced off either, it was a major screw up from the ground shop I hired. Since then, I have faced them all off and made sure that all the sets have the carbide perfectly round and concentric to the chucking shaft. Although all size I have available from this batch are under 0.844".
So now all you need to do is to carefully. Install a new pin and new female insert. From experience it is possible to get it perfect, but chances are you are most likely will have 0.001" to 0.003" lip, therefore I recommend buying a your sets 0.003"- 0.004" oversize, so in case your pin/insert are off by 0.003", you can get a final grind done on both together to true them up on the OD.
This is not an easy task. It's only recommended for well experienced cue makers in pin and insert replacement.
Best Regards.
Ps you do not need to specify the thread as long as it's not anything over 3/8" those would work.
 
To quote Brupert: "when you start out with s*** you end up with s***". Basically, if you mess something up start over."

Truer words were never spoken.

I nearly always agree with Neil, but not this time. I think resurrecting these things would be a waste of time and money.

If I was going to make my own carbide mandrels, I would not start with someone else's junk. I would start with carbide drill bushings and go from there. I mean, if it needs to be ground anyway.....?

Just one man's opinion.

Robin Snyder
 
Robin, I will post my fix when it is done.
The idea is very simple, to make the mandrels with tapered inserts for the pins.
Then interchangeable pins can be put into any size mandrel. So instead of 6 or 10 sets, I only need the pins with the taper, like a morse taper and a small a capscrew to retain it.
This clearly does not suit someone who is in a hurry to switch from 1 to another.
The rest of the mandrel will be trued up off the inner taper.
Neil
 
conetip said:
Robin, I will post my fix when it is done.
The idea is very simple, to make the mandrels with tapered inserts for the pins.
Then interchangeable pins can be put into any size mandrel. So instead of 6 or 10 sets, I only need the pins with the taper, like a morse taper and a small a capscrew to retain it.
This clearly does not suit someone who is in a hurry to switch from 1 to another.
The rest of the mandrel will be trued up off the inner taper.
Neil
Click to expand...

Damn Neil, I like that. I've been thinking the same thing, about making removable pins for the last week or two. I was toying with the idea of using hardened pins and having precision threads ground. Also thought of a keyed centering barrel. Never came up with a real plan, just rolling it around in my head.

Using a taper didn't cross my mind. That's a pretty good idea. An MT drill for example is keyed at the end to keep it from turning. How would you do that in the Mandrel? Then again since you're just sanding, pressure from the tailstock is probably more than enough. Darn near brilliant.

If you don't mind, can you shoot me a PM? I'll certainly fill you in on what I come up with.
 
interchangeable threads? WOW!

Neil, if you can pull this off, I will be even more impressed with your capabilities than I was previously.

Anyone who can supply tapered carbide mandrels with interchangeable threads, economically,...wow. Why would anyone get anything else?

Neil, if you say you can do it, you probably can. It's a great solution but, born skeptic that I am, I gotta see it.
 
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One thing for sure, he can't do any worse than the last guy that came on here selling mandrels. We both know that.

carguy said:
Neil, if you can pull this off, I will be even more impressed with your capabilities than I was previously.

Anyone who can supply tapered carbide mandrels with interchangeable threads, economically,...wow. Why would anyone get anything else?

Neil, if you say you can do it, you probably can. It's a great solution but, born skeptic that I am, I gotta see it.
Click to expand...
 
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