I now assemble the blanks onto the Mandrel. I have to add an extra bushing to make up the difference that I lack in length to be able to tighten. What I don’t want to do at this point is to tighten the assembly down. All I need to do here is snug everything up.

I bring the assembly over to the lathe and insert the taper. I bring the tail stock in and tighten it down to the lathe bed. I am using a hardened steel live center because I have learned that the slightest alignment problem will eat up a soft steel center.

At this time I go ahead and crank the tailstock so that it pushes and seats the taper into the head stock. You must be careful here not to bend the shaft of the mandrel. Once it is tight, I back out just a bit and tighten the knurled nut.

I go ahead and rough down the blanks and I am not too worried about shape or form at this time. I am just making them round.

Personally, I like to turn a small tenon on the edges of the blanks. I go almost to the bushings but not quite. This helps me when turning to not tear out on the edges where my components will fit and also helps me in not lathing my bushings.

I finish turning the blanks down to size using a spindle gouge and make a finish cut with the skew chisel.

Sanding is made very easy with my sanding paddle. I progress through grits from 220 up to 600 depending on how good of a job I did with my skew on the finish cut. Remember to stop between each grit and to sand with the grain to remove the circular sanding marks.