re: #51 RealityBasedSteve

Nope. I mount the blank in a standard 4 jaw chuck, put a jacobs chuck in the tail stock, and use the lathe itself as a horizontal drill press. IF I were doing a huge production output on a regular basis it might be nice to have a DP with a 4+ inch stroke and a self centering vice. It actually only takes me about 5 minutes to drill both blanks for a pen, and if I’m doing several at a setting I do them in batches so I don’t have as much time doing setups.

Some people like using brad point drills, other regular bits. I’ve found that by having the wood spinning and the bit stationary as I feed it in it doesn’t make much difference in the results.

RBS

I’ve done a fair bit of drilling of metal using exactly that process. Do you shape the outside immediately after drilling the hole?