In article ,
Owen Lowe wrote:

Am planning on making some turned earrings in the next week and will be
drilling a very small hole through to attach the ear hardware.

1) Does it make any difference as to wandering if you turn the wood
while the bit is stationary or turn the bit and hold the wood?

2) Am drilling Hard Maple with a #60 bit. Any way to keep it on the
straight and true? When using this small of a bit, does Q1 come into
play any more than with larger bits?

Thanks

Just wanted to post a followup to this thread.

The mini-chuck from Woodcraft was a bust. It was bent and thus rotated
off-center. I could have straightened it, but then I wasn't confident it
would be true in the future unless I checked it before every use. Since
I was wanting to mount this in the tailstock, checking it would require
unmounting whatever was in the headstock to install a chuck and re-true.
I decided to return it and just use my Albrecht clone keyless chuck -
which is supposed to have a 0"-1/2" capacity. Also, the collet threads
were rough and not very nice to use - can one expect decent quality for
$10? I guess not.

I also bought the mini bit set (#61-#80) for $5. Very cheap and not of
particularly high quality. However, I noticed an identical looking set
at my local Ace Hardware in the metal grinding and welding section going
for $11. I decided to keep the Woodcraft set just to have them on hand
since the Ace store has stopped selling individual bits smaller than #60
in the last couple years.

As to drilling into the endgrain of hard maple, I tried George's
suggestion to reverse the lathe and "burn" the bit through. Worked like
a charm. Not sure how large a bit could successfully use this method,
but the #60 bit (.040") accomplished the task just fine. The through
holes were spot on or very nearly so with regard to parting off the wood
and having the "inner" hole in the center. On my previous 2 tries
drilling in the traditional manner, the "inner" holes were not centered
well enough to be confident of the results.

Thanks to all who took the time to offer opinions.

--
Owen Lowe

Northwest Woodturners
Pacific Northwest Woodturning Guild
___
Tips fer Turnin': Place a sign, easily seen as you switch on your lathe, warning you to remove any and all rings from your fingers. Called degloving, extended hardware can grab your ring and rip it off your finger. A pic for the strong of stomach: www.itim.nsw.gov.au/go/objectid/2A3AC703-1321-1C29-70B067DC88E16BFC/index.cfm

Besides, rings can easily mar the surface of a turning as you check for finished smoothness.