On Friday, July 22, 2016 at 4:29:51 PM UTC-5, Electric Comet wrote:
anyone used a mandrel on their lathe

the kind with a taper that goes into tailstock and you can mount a buffing
wheel or cbn wheel

saw a combo but it is way too much and if there was a stand alone mandrel
that was 30 or so that would be a sensible addition

Why not just turn one? I love turning knitting needles, all 14" of them. To do that, I turn a mandrel to hold the stock as I feed it through. You could do something similar, but run a bolt through the mandrel to hold your buff on.