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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cooper" data-source="post: 1416821" data-attributes="member: 24830">I don't think for a lamp the wandering of the hole will be too great. I've recently been making slide whistles which require a piston to go up and down easily. I turned both ends to fit in the chuck, between centres, Drilled from each end of my blank with a good 8 mm bit  (I started the holes with a centre bit lined up with the marks from the drive dog and live centre) then used a cheap long bit from Amazon (£13 for a set of 5, 300mm) to connect the holes. Then enlarged the hole in stages from one end. (I tried boring from one end only and the hole wandered off by a lot.)For a lamp the hole doesn't need to be perfectly straight as would be ideal for the whistle. If I were you I'd have a go on a scrap before you commit to a nice piece of timber.When I used to make these with students, we had a hollow centre in the tail stock and used a long shell bit to bore the hole they were much stiffer than a twist bit with flutes and didn't deflect much. As I don't have either a hollow centre or shell bit I improvised. We fitted the stem into the base and turned the whole of the outside in one go.Good luckMartin</blockquote>

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