This is just one of some 80 files about machining and metalworking and useful workshop subjects that can be read at: http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ This file contains many users' tips for turning wood on a metal lathe. There may be some tips that will also help with milling wood using a metalworking milling machine. (And vice versa.) And at the end of 2011 folks came up with some oddball items that also needed turning for a specific purpose ... candles, paint rollers. So those tips were added here. Amazing how useful a metal lathe can be. (There is another much larger file on this site with tips about turning metal on a metal lathe.) In addition you may read other good turning tips in the lathe files associated with specific brands like Sherline or Taig. The "Turning Pens" file is mainly about turning wood and alternative materials for small projects. The secondary use of metal lathes for woodturning is covered in many lathe manuals such as the original one printed by Atlas, and still available from Clausing. Obviously if you can do metal milling on a lathe, you can also do wood (or plastic or ...) milling on a lathe. So there is also the possibility of using a metal milling machine on wood/non-metal projects. Sometimes wood routers or Dremel-like high speed grinders are attached to wood lathe carriages, or drill press heads, or even to milling machine heads for the purpose of working on non-metal parts, but with the precision movements possible with the metal machine's controls. (Such modifications or attachments may be described in the modification files on this site -- or in the files and photos of the metal groups -- or in the private home pages of metalworkers showing their workshop projects. It really pays to check out these helpful sites.) Rather than create a separate file for wood milling topics, such tips will be included here and will serve the interests of all parties. For example, wood makes a real mess of an oil covered lathe, and needs considerably more cleaning effort at the end of the day. Cleanup is expedited by using wax on the ways instead of oil BEFORE wood turning sessions. This same tip of wax vice oil makes sense for the upper table surfaces of a milling machine destined to be buried in wood dust. It makes even more sense to wrap/cover/seal complex lathe or mill components before starting. If you got to this file directly from my HOME PAGE, return there by using your browser's back button. BUT if you came to this file as the result of a web search engine, see many additional files on my home page Machining and Metalworking at Home http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html SAFETY WARNING BEWARE: DO NOT ASSUME that any subject matter or procedure or process is safe or correct or appropriate just because it was mentioned in a news/user group or was included in these files or on this site or on any other web site or was published in a magazine or book or video. Working with metals and machinery and chemicals and electrical equipment is inherently dangerous. Wear safety devices and clothing as appropriate. Remove watches, rings, and jewellery -- and secure or remove loose clothing -- before operating any machine. Read, understand and follow the latest operating procedures and safety instructions provided by the manufacturer of your machine or tool or product. If you do not have those most recent official instructions, acquire a copy through the manufacturer before operating or using their product. Where the company no longer exists, use the appropriate news or user group to locate an official copy. Be careful -- original instructions may not meet current safety standards. Updated safety information and operating instructions may also be available through a local club, a local professional in the trade, a local business, or an appropriate government agency. In every case, use your common sense before beginning or taking the next step; and do not proceed if you have any questions or doubts about any procedure, or the safety of any procedure. Follow all laws and codes, and employ certified or licenced professionals as required by those laws or codes. Hazardous tasks beyond your competence or expertise should also be contracted to professionals. Let's be really careful out there. (c) Copyright 2003 - 2015 Machining and Metalworking at Home The form of the collected work in this text file (including editing, additions, and notes) is copyrighted and this file is not to be reproduced by any means, including electronic, without written permission except for strictly personal use. =========================================================================== Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 23:38:04 -0000 From: "Tim Clarke" Subject: WOOD ON THE ATLAS I've been turning wood pens on a atlas for a couple years now. Works really slick BUT the shavings that land on the lead screw need to be removed as they build up; they tend to pack the miter gears behind the apron. If you use a rest and chisels, no problem, but I like to use power feed, hence the buildup. The diamond toolholder makes a fine woodcutting setup, grind the bit with the block provided with it and then stone the bit razor sharp. A little more radius than for steel, and almost no sanding required. Tim Clarke ------- Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 19:38:31 -0300 From: Myron Gochnauer Subject: treen mandrel Does anyone use something like Beall's "treen mandrel" on the Taig? Here's the site: www.bealltool.com/treen The mandrels they make are for the Jet or Morse taper lathes. It might be fun to turn "treens" on the Taig, too. This is how they explain "treen" on their site: "Treen is a term used to describe any of a number of small, utilitarian items made from wood. Treen, literally means "from a tree" and can cover anything from carved kitchen ware such as spoons and porringers, to turned boxes and bowls. Though the word has been out of general use for some time, it is returning and is particularly apt for the many small hand turned objects now being made." Myron ------- Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 16:01:45 -0700 From: "Nicholas Carter and Felice Luftschein" Subject: Re: treen mandrel Up to 1" bore it would be easy to make these out of the blank arbors. Larger than that you could just turn some out of Aluminum and chuck them in the 4 jaw. http://www.cartertools.com/nfhome.html ------- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 15:33:22 -0400 From: Tom Bank Subject: RE: Spur Driver "Marshall Pharoah" wrote: >>> The chuck will crush the wood and eventually lose center. The spur driver will not. You will periodically have to tighten the tailstock. Generally you mark the center of the piece you want to turn and use a wooden mallet to set the spur into the wood, then place the piece in the lathe, otherwise you may place too much strain on the tailstock trying to engage the spurs into the wood. Marshall <<< On hardwood I have had to drill an undersized hole in the center of the end of the workpiece and then cut a saw slot "X" with a thin bladed saw to get the spurs of the spur drive to engage reliably. An example would be some cocobola handles I made for a set of gravers I have. The wood was maybe 3/4" square and was sold for making pen and pencil sets. I got several dozen cheap at a going out of business sale. They turn beautifully and make very nice small tool handles, but the wood is extremely dense. I also cut slots in a piece of dowel I needed to tweak. My removable banister/balusters/shoe rail woodworking project jig somehow slipped and one of the balusters was drilled off center. I took an oversized dowel, cut one vertical slot (with an X-acto saw) and two horizontal slots 1/8" apart in the one end and drilled two matching holes 1/8" apart in the opposite end. I then turned the two ends to the required dowel size, but offset, on the Sherline lathe and hand finished the diagonal offset in the middle. The piece confounded the boys at the local lumber yard and it worked perfectly in the application I had for it. Saved ordering another baluster from out of state. When the accuracy of your workmanship is not up to the requirements of the project, resort to art. :^) Regards, Tom ------- From: Myron Gochnauer Date: Fri Jul 6, 2001 8:57 pm Subject: toolbits for wood Is anyone using 1/4" HSS toolbit to turn wood? I'm wondering whether it would be feasible to construct wood-turning "chisels" using 1/4" tool bits as the business end. I've turn wood in the normal metal-turning way, but here I'm thinking about wood-turning style, with the cutting tool held in the hand and braced on the tool rest. Does anyone have any experience with making such tools? It seems like a waste of money to buy expensive woodturning tools with non-replaceable cutting edges or tips: eventually they'll wear/sharpen down to the point where they should be replaced, and then you'll have to discard a fair bit of overpriced steel-and-wood that should outlast us all. Myron ------- From: phil-jasterx~xxe... Date: Fri Jul 6, 2001 9:24 pm Subject: Re: toolbits for wood ::::> Myron, you would be better off with HSS Drill Rod, rather than 1/4" X 1/4" [square] tool bits. If you have knowledge of metal work HSS Drill rod can be made into great wood working tools for your lathe. :::::> you are right the prices that you find on wood turning tools is "up there" and I think most is jsut "names" rather than really better. :::> I made a very nice bowl gouge out of some 7/16" dia. HSS drill rod, cut the "cove" out with a 3" X 1/16" High Speed grinding/cutting Wheel, the total time to grind out the cove was about half and hour, the metal never got "too warm" and the profile of the gouge matches the expensive "name" gouges at 40-50 dollar range! I think the metal cost me about 3.00 cut off a 36" long rod. Hope that helps you, phil ------- From: "Nicholas Carter and Felice Luftschein" Date: Sat Jul 7, 2001 1:59 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] toolbits for wood A woodturning friend of mine, who is a "pro", uses a small gouge in the toolpost of his Sherline - sort of the reverse of what you are asking. He also uses a 1/4" toolbit set high on the sherline, so that it takes a tangential cut (sort of hard to describe.) I think that the short answer is "yes" as long as you get all the rake angles right. http://www.cartertools.com/nfhome.html ------- From: Myron Gochnauer Date: Sun Jul 8, 2001 6:13 pm Subject: Re: [taigtools] toolbits for wood I found another answer to my question about using 1/4" tool bits in woodturning tools: the "Texas Toothpick" --- http://home.sprintmail.com/~h2/tools/texas_toothpick.html Yikes! Myron ------- From: Ken Jenkins Date: Wed Jul 18, 2001 3:43 pm Subject: Re: Duplicator for wood parts (think ... 16 pawns) I'm contemplating building a duplicator for turning small wood parts on the Taig lathe. The concept is very simple and has been around for a long time. Basically you have a "hockey puck" with a tool post and provide a wider bed to secure down on top of your existing lathe bed to run the "puck" around on. The top of the "puck" has the toolpost and the front edge of the "puck" has a stylus which runs against a 2D template mounted appropriately on your larger bed. The stylus and tool cutting profile match. If I had my CNC conversion done this would be a mute point. Got the motors done, 2 axis done, the controller, the software everything but wiring the whole thing up ... it's getting the time to do the wiring harness for everything that's keeping from finishing... very frustrating ... however, enough whining ... anybody out there done the manual "hockey puck" on larger bed approach? Ken J. -------- From: "Nicholas Carter and Felice Luftschein" Date: Wed Jul 18, 2001 4:49 pm Subject: Re: Duplicator for wood parts (think ... 16 pawns) Remember you have two useful t-slots in back, one on the headstock and one on the tailstock for mounting a piece of angle that the template can bolt to. ------- From: phil-jasterx~xxe... Date: Wed Jul 18, 2001 11:56 pm Subject: Re: Duplicator for wood parts (think ... 16 pawns) I'm contemplating building a duplicator for turning small wood parts on the Taig lathe. The concept is very simple and has been around for a long time. Basically you have a "hockey puck" with a tool post and provide a wider bed to secure down on top of your existing lathe bed to run the "puck" around on. The top of the "puck" has the toolpost .... Snipped..... Two points to share 1. Penn State Industries has a great website, and has a duplicator there and in their catalog. 2. consider salvaging out an electric typewriter, the bar and the trolley that is the central part of the typewriter is a GREAT start to a homemade duplicator. I scrapped out a Cannon for just that project! hope that helps, phil ------- From: Ken Jenkins Date: Thu Jul 19, 2001 10:35 am Subject: Re: Duplicator example I tried in narrative form to describe the duplicator design I'm toying with but perhaps it would be clearer to look at the larger example below for the Shopsmith. http://www.shopsmith.com/wuljpg/555c/555638l.jpg Only imagine the template holder on the back edge of the baseboard rather than up in the air as in the example above and the stylus projecting from the bottom front edge of the toolholder. My first reaction to seeing this design years ago was that it would be "scary unstable" (after all the the tool platform is not attached to any thing like guides or rails but just slides around). Instinct wants to tell you the tool would perhaps catch at some point and fling the toolholder off the table and you cringing in a corner. In fact, the design is very stable and solid. All the loads and forces keep the tool platform firmly on the bed and not being attached to any sort of linear guide system makes it flexible in terms of angle of attack (ie. undercuts). I've used one and they work great. Reminds me of my favorite Einstein quote: "Things should always be made as simple as possible .... but no simpler." Anyhoo ... a smaller version of this is what I intend. Ken J. ------- From: Stan Stocker Date: Fri Jul 20, 2001 12:02 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] Re: Duplicator example Ken, One thing about the "puck" style duplicators is that the puck base extends out under the cutter to avoid having the cutting tip dig in. Jim Eckman mounted his toolpost on a somewhat larger base, with just a bit of tool overhang. If the downwards thrust from the cutter gets too far outside the base it would be possible for the puck to tip, the cutter to dig in, and the whole puck kick out. You could remove the leadscrew on the carriage and mount the stylus to the rear of the carriage I suppose. No real tooling to make, just the template holder which has to be done anyway. You could even add some sort of spring or hanging weight arrangement and make the process darn near automatic. The ability to shorten the stylus slightly would even allow you to save 5 thou or so for a finishing pass. Stan ------- From: James Eckman Date: Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:29 am Subject: Re: Re: Duplicator example > If the downwards thrust from the cutter gets too far > outside the base it would be possible for the puck > to tip, the cutter to dig in, and the whole puck kick out. It surely will! Your guide will have to be above the puck, reducing the range of material worked. I use this tool ONLY for collet work, chuck jaws can eat fingers! If you use it with a chuck please put a safety cover over the jaws. For woodworking you can use a screw chuck safely. Jim Eckman ------- From: Larry Richter Date: Fri Jul 20, 2001 11:34 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] Re: Re: Duplicator example There is a homemade duplicator setup shown installed on a Unimat in the current issue of Ships in Scale. ------- From: Myron Gochnauer Date: Sat Jul 28, 2001 6:06 pm Subject: woodturning I just bought a wood turning tool designed for full sized wood lathes. (It is a short version of what the maker calls the "Texas toothpick".) The cutting tool is a 1/4" hss bit (like Taig --- which is why I bought it). The end is ground in an arc (looking down at it), and the rake is about 15 degrees: ie it is made by setting the grinder support at 15 degree and grinding by moving the tool bit through part of a circle). It does a very nice job cutting wood. If you're thinking of doing wood on the Taig, the round nose might be a good place to start for a toolbit. BTW, the supplied bit was 10% cobalt, and made in Spain. I had no idea Spain was a sources for tool steel these days. Myron ------- From: Tom Benedict Date: Fri Aug 17, 2001 10:35 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] Lee Valley Tools OT On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 phil-jasterx~xxe... wrote: >I just thought I would drop a line and say I got an order from Lee >Valley Tools for a 3/4" spur [used to drive wood spindles] made >especially for the TAIG. it also includes a 7/16 "cup" to add to the >3/8-24 threaded dead point for the tail stock. >Real nice tooling and fairly decent price at $19.95. >They of course sent a full catalog, primarily for wood workers and >they have some really nice tools that are meant to help the wood worker. I picked up the same spur a while back, but I've had a problem with it (it's my problem, not the spur's). Maybe someone here can shed some light on it: When I do wood turning, I tend to use hardwoods like ebony and oak. I haven't been able to get the spur to get enough purchase on the wood to do any good. Keep in mind I'm a complete newbie at wood turning, so if I'm missing something fundamental, assume I'm missing something fundamental and fill me in. How do you use a spur with a wood like ebony? Tom ------- From: Myron Gochnauer Date: Fri Aug 17, 2001 11:22 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] Lee Valley Tools OT >When I do wood turning, I tend to use hardwoods like ebony >and oak. Ihaven't been able to get the spur to get enough >purchase on the wood to do any good. What I'm doing at the moment is to use a center punch to mark the center of the wood, then hold the (centered) wood aligned with the spur and give it a few good whacks on the end with a rubber mallet. That usually drives the spurs far enough in to make a good grip (with the other end held with a center, of course). On a bigger wood lathe which has the drive spur on a Morse taper, I whack the drive into the wood before mounting it on the lathe. This is probably not a good idea with the Taig, since you might damage the threads of the drive spur. Myron ------- From: "Roger V. Petrella Jr." Date: Fri Aug 17, 2001 11:37 am Subject: Re: [taigtools] Lee Valley Tools OT Tom, the way I was taught, and have always used, is to make diagonal cuts across the corners of the piece about 1/1-3/16" deep with a back saw or similar. Use a wood or other soft faced mallet to drive the center into the cuts. There are a couple of real good books out there on the basics of wood turning. You ought to get one. Roger Petrella Franktown, CO ------- Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:23:37 EST From: billieblyx~xxaol.com Subject: Re: Another PIM/MW question -- Enco tool post ad About the wood turning. I took off the compound, I made a plate out of hot roll about 4"x 6" x 3/8, I turned another piece of stock about 2 1/2 Dia x 2" long with a hole in the middle to receive the (Delta) tool rest. There is a set screw in the side of this to lock the tool rest in. This all fits where the compound was. I only had to drill and tap 2 holes in lathe to hold it on, the other 2 holes were the ones that hold on the compound. Then all you need are turning tools (about 100.00) and a spur center and live center. This may be a little fuzzy explanation so if anyone is really interested I will do some measurements and send them to you. I'm having fun with wood and metal or is that metal and wood? ------- Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:35:49 EST From: billieblyx~xxaol.com Subject: Metal or Wood For the wood turning...I took off my compound which left me with a 5/8' pin and 2 bolts sticking up. I have a piece of hot roll 3/8 x 4"x6". I drilled a 5/8" hole to go over the compound pin and 4 holes to hold it down. Two of these holes take advantage of the hold down bolts, the other 2 I had to drill and tap (5/16") holes in the carriage. This is into the solid part and does not hurt any working parts. Then I weld a piece 2" round x 1 1/4" long onto the plate just ahead of the compound pin. Then I bored a 1" hole in this welded on piece to accept a 12" Delta tool rest. Then all you have to buy is a spur center and a live center for wood. The dimensions will be different for other lathes. I mainly turn banjo pots on my lathe using a faceplate. I am going to upload pictures of this soon. Having fun metal or wood. ------- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 01:55:16 -0500 From: Stan Stocker Subject: Re: Re: Looking to buy some lathe accesories from someone..... Hi Chris; I wasn't suggesting a machine shop business as a place to make contacts, but rather a local woodworking or metalworking club if you're lucky enough to have one in your area. Lots of woodworkers have Taig or Sherline tools for pen and pencil making. If you have a scrap yard in your area that is hobbyist friendly, you might make a contact with someone locally with common interests through that route. Our local yard is owned by a retired machinist who actually likes small steam engines and such. You're right in that it never hurts to ask, the folks in this group are new-guy friendly! Do you have small chucks for a wood lathe that happen to be threaded 3/4-16? Most of the Craftsman wood lathes sold over the years have this spindle thread. A spacer between the chuck and the spindle shoulder will let you use these without modifying the chucks. Just asking as you mentioned having some woodworking equipment already, thought a wood lathe might be one of the items available. If nothing else, you can get a faceplate for a Sears woodlathe, add a spacer, and face the faceplate in the lathe so it runs true. You could then secure the aluminum YoYo blanks to the faceplate and turn them. You can make a pen mandrel using the collets or a drill chuck with the headstock arbor adapter to hold one end of the rod. Just thread one end, and center drill to take the tailstock tip. Assorted mandrels are shown in most pen and pencil turning books. You can at least save some money on this front! I guess it would be possible to make a tailstock for the Taig, at least one that doesn't have a set over feature. It would be tricky without access to at least a very decent drill press to poke the hole for the ram though. As you already have some woodworking tools, you could even fashion a servicable tailstock from maple I suppose. See the link below before you decide I've been drinking! I've made steady rests for wood lathes this way a few times. Making it capable of drilling would be tricky, but at least a center could be provided. Perhaps you could move the YoYo to the front of the project list? You could mount a drill chuck on a straight shank arbor and make a toolpost to carry it on the carriage fairly easily. I suppose that you could even mount a center in this, and make a toolrest for woodturning style tools. In metalwork, the handheld lathe chisels are known as gravers. You use them just like standard chisels on a wood lathe. It just gets a bit more exciting if there is a catch :-) With the carriage locked at the far end of the lathe, you could turn between centers this way. Heck, you could even drill a 1/4 inch hole in a tool post, turn or even file a 60 degree point on a bit of 1/4 inch drill rod spinning in a collet, and secure the shop made center in the toolpost with a setscrew. This would give you a bit more length between centers. You could save the cost of collets and use a drill chuck on the adapter for mounting the chuck in the headstock of the lathe. Use this to drill the hole in a toolpost to carry the chuck on the straight shank. The toolpost will have to be a rectangular piece of aluminum a bit wider than the standard toolpost so there is enough meat to take a 3/8 or 1/2 inch hole and still be strong. Not the most conventional ideas in every case, saving money on the core machine itself is a tough nut to crack. Hopefully you can use some of these ideas to bootstrap using the core machine to build parts to extend it. As it never hurts to ask, you might ask if any list members are in your area and willing to help you out with making some of these parts. I'm in Linden, Virginia by the way, in the unlikely case you're local. If so, I could spend a day and help you get some of these odds and ends made and help you get in touch with some of the other folks in the MD/DC/VA area. Keep plugging away, it's amazing what you can do with a hacksaw, file, and minimal lathe when they are the only tools at hand. I hope you've taken a look at the files section of this group, you might get some ideas from the photos and articles there, and also spent some time at Nick Carters web site. You might also do a search on "Fonly Lathe" on google. Some interesting ideas about making a lathe for model railroading metal turning, on a lathe made with lots of wooden parts. The tailstock might interest you. The first part of the construction series is at: http://www.2mm.org.uk/fonly/fonlypt1.htm You're not alone if having to figure out how to do more with less cash, my SB13 was $100 and rusted solid, laying in old straw in the bottom of a partially collapsed barn. Took several years to rebuild, and it's still a work in progress. But it works, and $2700 didn't go to the PRC, not that there is a spare $2700 available anyway. Stan ------- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:10:31 -0000 From: "woodknack" Subject: Re: Looking to buy some lathe accesories from someone..... I too did'nt want to spend the money penstate wanted for there tail stock. So I just purchased the 1/4 collet and closer and turned down a grade 8 5/16 bolt to 1/4. and drilled a tapper on the end for a the tailstock. I have a mandrel from penstate for my southend lathe and it is not as good as the one I made out of a bolt. the bolt is much more rugged. doesn't want to flex at all like the other one I bought. So here's a good money saver for you. I'd pass on the compound slide until you have more money and buy the tailstock. you can move the tailstock to get you tapered angles for your pens etc. I'm in the same boat not wanting to spend a lot of money up front. If you have a motor you can save yourself $50 dollars on the price of the lathe right there! I just ordered mine, $280 I got the lathe unassembled, tailstock, 6 piece cutting bits, plus one unground, 4 jaw chuck, 1/4 collet/ collet closer, 1/8-1/2 drill chuck,needle bearing center so you have a live center for turning,1/2 pulley set, and a back tool post. I ordered all this from www.cartertools.com I want to get more stuff but for now this will get me going. and I think it would be plenty for you to. Because my main goal for the lathe is going to be pen making. Have any more questions feel free to ask. ------- Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 10:33:00 -0700 From: "Yasmiin" Subject: RE: Slitting saw-cutting rather than slitting lookimb wrote: >>>Daniel, I enjoyed seeing your projects at your site. I have purchased a Sherline milling machine to be used as a tool to shape exotic woods for use in high-end jewelry. I don't have a way of slabbing my wood except for a japanese saw that I aquired. It makes nice cuts but certainly not as perfect as I want. Is there a way of using a slitting saw/arbor on the milling machine to do this? I am not without imagination but all the people I talk to about slitting saws are that they are only for making "slits" and not for cutting. I noticed you are using large slitting saws in your table saw projects...unless I am mistaken. Could you help me here? I would appreciate a source for the slitting saw if you could. Look forward to hearing from you, "B" tformsx~xxthoughtformsjewelry.com <<< Ron Roske [mailto:rrrosk19x~xxecity.net] wrote: >>You might be more satisfied with the result if you were to consider obtaining a small tabletop band saw or table saw to slab your wood. The main difference between a slitting saw and a "sawing" saw is that the slitting saw has no offsets on the teeth whereas the "sawing" saw does. This tooth offset makes the cut of the saw wider than the actual thickness of the saw blade and this is called the saw kleft. It's done this way so as to allow the blade to go deeper into the material without binding and/or burning the wood. So, basically, the slitting saw is for shallow cuts and the "sawing" saw is for deeper cuts. Hope this helps a bit. Have a good one RonR << There is another option. There are printers saws that were used in the days when printing used metal type. They were used to cut apart the web. ( I think this is the term ). Anyway these were small rolling table saws. The best one being a Hammond Glider. The rolling part of the table goes all the way to the saw. These have been used by wood workers when doing small work like jewelry boxes. You can clamp the work to the rolling table and do very small pieces without risking you fingers. I got two of them for $ 400. I use one for wood and the other for metal. Actually the first one was 400 and the second one they gave me sort. Sort of a 2 for 1 sale. There are also model makers table saws but I think the printers saws have them all beat. However, the suggestion of using a small band saw is a good one if the finish of the cut isn't an issue. The band saw is the must used tool that I have outside the lathes and the mill. Yasmiin ------- Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2002 15:56:08 -0400 From: "Daniel Munoz" Subject: RE: Slitting saw-cutting rather than slitting Here's my advice, based on some limited experience. Please take first into account other advice from experienced guys, I'm only a lucky beginner ;-) I had very good results with a slitting saw in maple wood. friction burning don't seem to be a problem for cutting wood with a slitting saw if the cut is not too deep. The burning occur when the wood is not perfectly parallel with the cut. Using the precision and rigidity of the Sherline mill, this is not a problem. I only had burning problems while pushing manually the wood on my first experimental table saw, and it was because the fence was not set exactly parallel with the blade. A small use of cutting wax helped could help a lot too without staining the wood. I bought various diameter HSS slitting saws (2", 3" and 4") at KBC Tools http://www.kbctools.com . They sell both in US and Canada, and they have a HUGE (and free!!) catalog of tools ! They conveniently sell 1/2 arbor saws, compatible with Sherline arbor. Please be careful with their references, there is some mistakes in their lists. Verify that the reference of the saw you want have the right hole diameter (it's part of the their online item description). Some are wrongly printed on the paper catalog and I received once 1" holes, printed as 1/2 holes. here's a few references I have from their catalog (prices from 4$ to 10$). Use them in their search page. 5-746-250 5-746-380 5-746-590 I also figured that the 4" have a tendency to flex too much in the wood. 3" seems to be good in average. On a 1" arbor external diameter like the one used by Sherline, there's almost 1" of deep cut available in the radius. Good enough for my uses. Also note the you could need a larger saw than theoretically necessary, if you cant get the arbor blade close enough to the piece (because something is on the way). I also have a small variable speed tabletop band saw (Sears Craftsman 3 wheels), but it is **VERY** difficult to have a proper cut. The surface finish is good (but not as perfect as with a slitting saw), but the difficulty is to have a perfectly squared cut. between the deflection of the blade, the perpendicularity of the table, and the fence parallelism, it's certainly much more difficult to adjust than a 8 axes Sherline mill ;-) And for very precise and repetitive cut, forget it, there's no graduated wheels in a table saw. If the items you want to cut are small (meaning, fit easily under the mill), than you can use the standard slitting saw arbor and slice some pieces of hard wood with it. See the last picture in http://www.nutsnbits.com/ship_guns.htm . All the wood pieces of the carriages gun have been cut with a previously shaped maple bar firmly gripped in the mill's vise, and cut with the standard Sherline arbor saw. I didn't have my table saw finished at this time. But anyway if the lateral movement you need is not too large, you'll have great results with hard wood on the mill (if it is large, turning the little wheels will become very quickly annoying !) The maple pieces of my carriages gun are perfect, without any sanding. They are so precisely cut that the carriage you see on the picture is not glued, pieces of wood are just clipped in they slit and that's enough to keep the carriage rigid. There's absolutely no play, and the wood is elastic enough to handle easily a hard fit. I could add to the web site some very close macro photo of the cutting result if you like. The rule seem to be to use as small diameter as possible for your need to avoid saw binding. My advice is buy a few saw with the same TPI in various diameters, and use the smallest you can. The number of TPI by itself is not that important, you can always vary the rotation speed. Don't choose a too small number of TPI, as they have a tendency to be filled with dust rapidly. Let me know if I can be of any further help, Daniel. ------- Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 17:05:34 -0000 From: "rrhewson" Subject: Re: Taig for woodworking - How did duplicator work out In taigtoolsx~xxy..., Tom Benedict wrote: > Other than that, how's the duplicator working out for you? > Tom > On Mon, 24 Jun 2002, rrhewson wrote: > > I bought a "Copy Cat" duplicator from PSI. Arrived with a missing > > piece, the gib for the carriage. I substituted the gib from the Taig > > metal working cross slide attachment. Still waiting for the replacement! > > I adjusted the gib to take out the slack. > > The "Copy Cat" looks like a small version of the Vega duplicator. > > My problem is that when I take a cut from tailstock to headstock the > > action is very smooth. When I return from headstock to tailstock the > > motion is very stiff (either taking a lite cut or no cut). If I help > > the return with my hand it smooths out somewhat. > > There doesn't seem to be any play or wood chips jamming it. > > Any suggestions? Bob > > PS, "Copy Cat" can be found on Woodwrite's site (the maker) > > http://www.woodwriteltd.com/kt-19.htm The duplicator is doing the job I needed to do, namely duplicate a complex profile. I thought it might do a better job ie. the job is roughed out only and I have a fair amount of hand finishing to do. Since I was making quite a few of the same profile my procedure was to rough turn a batch of parts to approx OD, freehand (woodtruning techniques). Then put the duplicator on the lathe and turn all parts to size (dimenioning and location of profile detail is good with the duplicator). Then remove the Copy-Cat and finish turn the pieces by hand. I was targeting for a 30 minute/item but haven't been able to beat 40 min and keep quality up to par. Considering I was at about 60 minutes when I first started the project, I am improving. Thanks for the tips on gib adjustment, I'll readjust as suggested. Bob ------- Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 08:35:17 -0400 From: "Daniel Munoz" Subject: RE: Hi Bob, I've used plain HSS lathe bits with "standard" metal cutting edge to turn maple once, it sorted out nicely. I also use HSS end mills on the mill to cut profiles in maple, again with success. Look at the end of the page http://www.nutsnbits.com/ship_guns.htm Wheels where turned to size on the lathe with an HSS cutter, a profile bar was made and sliced on the mill for the various other parts. All is in maple. If I remember well, cut was better at high speed, to avoid the wood splitting, and also to have a better surface finish. Daniel ------- Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2002 15:45:06 -0500 From: ken grunke Subject: woodturning tool shapes From: Bob and Yvonne Dewar >I am looking for ideas for turning wood on the sherline lathe. I would >like to use the tool holder rather that a rest and cutting with a graver. >What cutter and what type of shape would be best for turning maple, for >example. Bob. There are three shapes that have become popular recently with woodturners, that work very well, and they are all ground from round stock. One is the round skew chisel--a bevel ground equally on each side of the end, with the edge skewed at an angle of 10 to 20 degrees. Somewhat hard to master, as it tends to grab easily and kick back, but gives a very nice finish without sanding, on spindle turning. Another is the fluteless gouge--the end has the profile of a spoon, or the narrow half of an egg. Instead of a groove, or flute, like a gouge, it is ground flat across at the center of the rod. A bevel is ground around from one side to the other, at about 30 degrees. It gives a very fine finish and is very versatile, because you can use one side or the other as a skew chisel, peeling a nice curled shaving around each side of a bead right into a sharp groove, or inside a cove. It's easier to use than a skew chisel, because it has less tendency to grab and kick back. The other shape is simply a bevel ground across the end of a piece of round stock, the cutting edge being the tip and either side of the tip about a third of the diameter down. It's used the same way as the fluteless gouge, with the bevel down, is easier to make but not as easy to use or as versatile. Ken Grunke http://www.crwoodturner.com Coulee Region Woodturners http://www.token.crwoodturner.com/sherln/ Using a Sherline mill for woodturning ------- Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 02:25:06 -0800 From: "Dave Hylands" Subject: How I adapted the Lee Valley Wood Working Tool Rest for use on a Sherline Hi everyone, if you're interested in wood working using your lathe, I've posted a bunch of pictures on pen making at: http://www.davehylands.com/Wood-Working/ including a section on how I modified the Lee Valley Tool Rest (which is designed for the Taig) to work on the Sherline. It also includes one way of making dovetails without a dovetail cutter. http://www.davehylands.com/Wood-Working/Tool-Rest/ Dave Hylands Vancouver, BC, Canada http://www.davehylands.com/ ------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 19:22:20 -0000 From: "vapormail " Subject: Best cutter shape for wood. Making multiple copies of wood knobs on South Bend lathe using a home fabricated duplicator. Does anyone have a recommendation for the best shape for the 1/4" carbide cutting tool? Preferably, the tool would be able to provide a smooth cut for both right and left shoulders and fairly elaborate curves and concaves; all, with no or limited tear-out. Many thanks. ------- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2002 09:45:27 +0000 From: Steve Blackmore Subject: Re: Best cutter shape for wood. I've seen a commercial one of these, the tools are indexable carbide tipped. The main ones used are one with a circular insert and a standard triangular bit. Steve Blackmore ------- NOTE TO FILE: The following topic goes into use of CNC turning on a Sherline lathe conversion, but the idea can be adapted to other lathes. For more links for CNC topics see the text file "CNC General". The possible use in complex ornamental turning projects certainly springs to mind. Another interesting variation here is combining two machines to make more complex forms. ------- Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 11:55:26 -0700 From: Bryan Mumford Subject: CNC lathe? I'm curious if people are doing CNC turning on Sherline lathes. A couple of years ago I developed a Sherline CNC lathe to turn wood. Since then the control electronics got sold and I'm thinking about setting it up again. My software was written to run on a Macintosh computer and translate shapes drawn in Adobe Illustrator. I wonder if there is any ready-to-go software on the market to turn free-form shapes (like flutes and finials) as opposed to machine parts. The things I was doing seem difficult to do with g-code. I'd like to hear from anyone doing this kind of work. You can see a couple of parts I turned on my CNC Sherline lathe here: http://www.bmumford.com/ebay/details/puny.jpg http://www.bmumford.com/ebay/details/finial.jpg Bryan Mumford Santa Barbara, California http://www.bmumford.com ------- Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 23:15:03 -0700 From: gleex~xxica.com Subject: Re: CNC lathe? Beautiful finials, Bryan. I believe that Dolphin will allow you to bring in a sketched line or even sketch a line free-hand. Then, you can define it as a profile to turn. I suggest checking with the folks at Dolphin. From the other side of the mountains (Mt. Pinos), Eric ------- Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 09:56:49 -0400 From: "IMService" Subject: Re: CNC lathe? Brian, the technique with cad is to use a series of arcs and connect them with smaller arcs or fillets. These are very easy to design in VectorCad. You plop an arc somewhere and go into modify mode. Copy, rubberband, stretch the ends and position the arcs where ever they look nice. Then Trim/Extend or fillet them into a nice smooth continuous contour. You can also sketch a series of points and connect them with a cubic or Nurb spline, or three point arcs. This curve can then be interpreted in VectorCam, into whatever series of lines and arcs are needed to command the G-code machine. It is difficult to program this kind of G-code by hand because the intersections of the various arcs are difficult to calculate and even more so because the hand coding is tedious. Vector takes care of that burden for you. It will also calculate multiple cuts so that you don't have to remove all the stock at one time. Many of our woodworking customers place a small lathe, like a Sherline on the table of their CNC routers. Then they use the router bit as if it were a lathe tool and create their spindles and finials in this manner. The combination of a rotating part and a rotating bit makes for rapid material removal. Best Regards, Fred Smith IMService ------- Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 08:57:28 -0700 From: Bryan Mumford Subject: Re: CNC lathe? >The combination of a rotating part and a >rotating bit makes for rapid material removal. This is an interesting idea. I put my Sherline lathe on the bed of my CNC knee mill because the mill is next to the computer and the mill table makes a nice platform for the little lathe. It didn't occur to me to put a cutter in the mill and run the lathe software through the mill table. Using VectorCad to run a lathe, with "multiple cuts so that you don't have to remove all the stock at one time", what it the output of VectorCad? Does it generate one huge G-code file that is stored and then sent to the motor driver? Bryan Mumford Santa Barbara, California http://www.bmumford.com ------- Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 14:01:25 -0400 From: "IMService" Subject: Re: Re: CNC lathe? You need to be careful of backlash effects with climb milling, but it works great for the woodworkers. Just lock your Z in place on the mill, with the cutter tip just below center. You will need to play with upcut or down cut, as I have not tried this on a sherline mill and lathe, and don't know how things will work best. >Using VectorCad to run a lathe, with "multiple cuts so that you don't >have to remove all the stock at one time", what it the output of >VectorCad? Does it generate one huge G-code file that is stored and >then sent to the motor driver? Yes, that is the way cad-cam works. The size of the file is inconsequential with the relatively cheap memory that is available with today's computers. Compared to a 3D surface file the g-code for a lathe roughing program is quite small. The usual roughing pattern on a lathe is a series of horizontal moves at some common depth of cut. Each of these moves is simply a G01. Then there is a retraction to the front of the part, step down to the next diameter and another long G01. That's the tedious part that Vector does for you which you or I (me for sure) make typographical errors. It does also follow the contour between cuts so that the finish pass is cutting the same depth all along the contour, rather than a stair step cut which might leave a mark in the surface. Tool radius offset compensation is also included for angles and arcs within the contour. The G-code program is ascii text. Vector has a post processor that speaks EMC, so you could even rig up the lathe with emc. The output can be configured for radius or diameter by checking a single box in the configuration. Best Regards, Fred Smith IMService ------- Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 06:56:00 -0700 From: Jay & Anne Greer Subject: Re: Wood tool rest for Atlas 10100 Butch, I bought a tool rest for my six inch Atlas from Clausing a while back. There are two available, large and small. I bought both as they were not expensive. I find I use the large one most often. Works almost as well as a dedicated wood lathe. But it can be a bit awkward at times as the carriage can get in the way of your hands. I often use the lead screw to turn a cylinder of wood like a wooden vise handle. I have a round nosed tool I fit in the tool post for this. Cheers, Jay Greer ------- Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 12:56:28 -0400 From: "mertbaker" Subject: Re: Metal spinning tool "rest" For a wood turning rest, all you need is a steel bar in the toolpost. I use this all the time when turning wood. For a spinning fulcrum, I have a 1" steel post that replaces the toolholder. Position it with the carriage. Mert ------- NOTE TO FILE: These next three messages are in response to a question as to which wood is suitable for small scale models (where heavy grained oak or the like are totally unrealistic with rough grain and large pores). ------- Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 06:12:19 -0000 From: "Graham Green" Subject: Re: which tool to use to smooth out casting on mill > When you say "scale" for wood, what > wood is good for scale work? I build model car parts and am > interested in building a 1/8 scale steering wheel with a wood rim > for a 1/8 scale Jag XKE. Thanks and Regards, John Parry, Winnipeg, MB Hi John, over here in Australia, we have a timber that is called Tasmanian Myrtle. This stuff is a modellers dream for timber that is required for scale work. The colour of this timber is not a rose or a white colour, but a nice rich timber colour. The GRAIN is virtually non-existant in this timber, there are growth rings which give it a look of grain, but, no craters of ANY description at all.This stuff can be bent with steam very easily to the shape of a steering wheel,it is even possible to go down to 25th scale with this timber and still look correct. I bent a piece that was approx 1/8th square by a foot long to a 45 degree angle with my finger nail after steaming, this was a very accute radius to try and bend, but it did it with out breaking. The best bit for last, you can clear lacquer this stuff, with no raising of ANY ugly grain that has to be sanded back time after time, you only have to rough it up between coats with a toothbrush. For a Mirror shine on your colour painting, undercoat with a similar colour as the top coat, this will require you rub down with about 600 grit, then two top colour coats for density of colour, then one clear coat to seal in the gloss. This is using a spray gun. You can turn this stuff in your lathe, I managed to turn a piece 2 inches long to a diameter of 1/8th of an inch thick without it breaking. I have sanded a piece to 0.020" thou thick without that being torn apart as well, so it has a good strength as well because it is a hardwood. I have tried a lot of different timbers with what I model, but this is the nicest and easiest to use of the lot. radish ------- Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 15:23:02 -0500 (Central Daylight Time) From: "Ron Romanski" Subject: Re: Re: which tool to use to smooth out casting on mill John, most of the folks who build museum quality scratch ship models choose the woods we use very carefully. As we also build in 1/8, 3/16, and 1/4 scale, we select exotic woods for the following criteria; 1. Grain-dense, tight longitudinal grain, few burls, curls, or prominent grain evidenced. 2. Color-the range of ebony to holly, black to white, with Swiss Pear, Boxwood, Pequia (bright yellow), Purple Heart, Pink Ivory, and Blue Mahoe. Often building Admiralty models little or no paint is used-rely instead on natural finish to heighten natual color of wood used. 3. Hardness - anti splintering. Software woods are used for intricate carvings, Jelutong, Boxwood, Loquat,and Poplar. Having said all that, the wood choice is based also largely on the model. Same would be true for your steering wheel. I would guess that a rosewood would be appropriate. Check out Gilmer Woods http://www.gilmerwood.com/Default.htm PS: We stay away from most common hardwood types, like Oak, due to unscale large grain structures. regards, Ron R ------- Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 10:41:38 -0000 From: "Graham Green" Subject: Scale Timber Hi All, here is a web site for anybody who is interested in this Tasmanian Myrtle for use in models. http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/tru/pdfs/myrtle.pdf radish ------- Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 14:57:36 GMT From: liestmanx~xxwt.net Subject: Re: turning wood with sherline lathe If I could chime in on this. I too use my Sherline equipment almost exclusively for turning wood and plastic. I make little quiet bagpipes that you can see if you go to this link and scroll down (the second photo is better maybe). http://web.wt.net/~liestman/ Anyway, I wanted to add that you really should install a dust collector if you deal a lot with wood. I have a 4" hose leading to a modest sized Jet dust collector, so that the hose hangs straight down over the lathe. I installed a rod about a foot tall, threaded into the back corner of the cross slide and the 4" hose goes over that rod. This moves the dust collector hose along with where the cutting is happening and keeps the whole area very clean. (I am allergic to the wood I work with - African blackwood - so that is a concern, but the dust collection is also good for keeping all that off the lathe workings. If you go CNC, drop me a note please. I am interested in that myself! John ------- NOTE TO FILE: Also see the "Plastic Machining" text file for hints on turning the different types of plastics, which is where this conversation veered off. ------- Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2003 19:11:19 -0000 From: "davideggy2" Subject: Duplicating lathe Hi group. After a lot of trial and error(mostly error), I have a web page up. It describes how I use my lathe for miniature wood turning. http://www.frontiernet.net/~burtchel/ Hope it's still there, it has a weird way of going bonkers. I'd much rather be turning than typing! Dave NOTE TO FILE: This site has disappeared in 2006/2007. ------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 14:18:29 -0500 (EST) From: x xx Subject: Re: Lubing the ways... Paul Busman wrote: >> Hi-- what do you recommend for lubricating the ways of my Sears 6"? I've tried various oils, but the carriage fits so closely that after one pass, the oil is gone. I'm machining hardwoods, not metal, in case that makes a diff. Thanks. << I think it does make a difference. Your object here is rust protection more than lubrication, so if you give the ways a good coat of Johnston's Paste Wax or similar - stay away from silicone tho' - you'll be alright because the wood chips won't absorb the wax the way they do oil. Sam ------- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:19:52 -0500 From: "mertbaker" Subject: Re: Lubing the ways... Further, the wood chips won't stick to the wax & make a mess as they will with oil. Mert ------- Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 19:13:55 -0000 From: "Bryan Hassing" Subject: What type of end mill for basswood? Hi: What type of end mill works well for milling relatively soft woods such as basswood? Two-flute? Four-flute? Coated? Also, what spindle speed should one use when milling wood? Thanks. Bryan ------- Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 20:21:30 -0000 From: "Keith Baddock" Subject: Re: What type of end mill for basswood? I've used 1/4" shank carbide wood router bits with balsa,spruce and beech (no basswood sorry) at the highest speed that sherline will run. Cuts fine, and doesn't blunt your milling cutters! Use a wood cutter for wood, metal cutter for metal... I think the wood cutters will be optimised (or at least better) for cutting wood - no of flutes, rake angle, design speed... Metal cutters will cut wood though, but from memory, the softer the material you are cutting, the faster the tool is blunted - I can go to the local hardware shop and get wood router bits, end mills cost more and I have to go to specialist engineering shops. Most carbide wood router bits are steel, with inserted (brazed?) on carbide cutting surfaces, so generally last a long time and stay sharp when cutting wood. Keith ------- Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 09:06:37 -0500 From: Ken Jenkins Subject: Re: Milling wood > Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 16:10:09 -0000 > From: "sweptvolume" > Subject: Mill Machining of Large Parts > First, Taig clearly states that the z-axis can be oriented 180° in order to machine parts larger than the x- and y-axis table movement accommodates. Does anyone have experience with these procedures? Nick' I'm hoping that if nothing else you might be able to offer some insight here in view of the fact that you have a customer "database" to draw from. Second, I will also want machine wood. The speeds achievable with the mill appear suitable for this purpose. Any thoughts here? Rick < You can mill wood with the lower speeds produced by most Taig motor/drive arrangements ... but you won't really like the finish and tearout that you get. For that reason, I have retrofitted a DEWALT laminate trimmer to my mill using a Taig riser as the basis for a custom mount. You can see the results here: http://kj.cloudcitydigital.com/pages/taig_mill_d660mount.html The laminate trimmer is really just a small router head. I have also added a variable speed controller to the set up so I can change the DEWALT speed to eliminate burning and for various plastics. Making the mount was not difficult and should you decide to do one yourself, I would be happy to advise you. Cheers, Ken Jenkins ------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:19:02 -0400 From: Stan Stocker Subject: Re: use of MT 3-2 adaptor > I have ordered a MT2 spur centre to drive wood spindles so that I can > occasionally turn wood in my lathe. I don't have room in my shop for > a wood lathe at this time so it is a compromise. I plan to put the > spur centre in a MT adaptor to fit the taper in the headstock. The > adaptor does not have provision for a draw bar. Is this a concern in > driving wood spindles with the spur centre? I figured that I could, > if necessary, drill and tap the end of the adaptor to take a small > diameter draw bar and then loc tite the spur centre into the adaptor > but is this necessary? John C. Suttie Hi John, I haven't run that many wood lathes, only own two, but none that I have used use a drawbar for the driving center. The center is in compression when turning between centers, as is the work. Getting all the wood shavings out of the apron and such is the biggest hassle on the occasions I have turned wood on a metal lathe. A few well placed towels or better yet cling film (Saran wrap) saves a lot of clean up. When sanding the work, a shop vac hose held near the work is helpful. Cheers, Stan ------- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:59:33 -0500 From: Jon Elson Subject: Re: use of MT 3-2 adaptor The only way it could possibly fall out of the spindle is if the wood part broke and was no longer holding it in. As long as the workpiece is there, I can't see how you could possibly need a drawbar in this situation. The drawbar is needed when side loads are applied to the tool, possibly with no axial load at all. This can happen with milling, and that's where the drawbar is used. Drilling and turning between centers holds the centers in place. One possible area of concern is that the spur center might spin in the spindle taper. If your spindle's internal taper is badly galled, this could be a problem. But, a drawbar is not really addressing the problem. A good, clean Morse taper fit will be hard to pull apart if you slip it in just hard enough to click. That's why many arbors and spindles have the drift slots in them, because Morse tapers are SUPPOSED to jam up tight. Jon ------- Subject: Captive rings [OldTools Group] From: Jim Thompson Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 13:14:18 -0700 I made a tool for the purpose of parting off captive rings on turnings. I got the idea from a lurker in Florida who wrote me off list and showed me the captive ring bottle stoppers he makes and sells. My picture shows that the top is hollowed out to resemble a wine glass. I obviously need more practice to get good at this, but I wanted to share this with somebody right away. I am thrilled to find that it is so easy. The tool is simple to make and I made a left and right tool on one piece of 0-1 steel. I will make others in other sizes. These tools, by the way, cost around $30 each if purchased. Tool pictures are right after the stopper pictures. Just drill a hole and grind away what you don't need. Very galootish! The first picture shows my very first effort at making one of the stoppers, and the second picture shows the one done by a pro. Like I said, I will get better at this. When I do, I will post some more pictures. http://homepage.mac.com/oldmillrat/PhotoAlbum59.html Jim Thompson, the old millrat in Riverside, CA ------- Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 18:22:50 -0000 From: "rrh0001" Subject: Ornamental Turning ("OT") [taigtools group] I'm about to try some "ornamental turning" using the Taig lathe. Although I'm still at a very early stage, I'm curious to know if anyone else on the Group has done any of this. At this stage, my own setup is designed for ornamental drilling and the immediate challenge is to machine drill heads similar to those in Holtzapffel's book on OT. I will try to post a photo of the drilling setup in the Photos section of the Group to give anyone who might be interested some idea of what it looks like. It's a bit of a Rube Goldberg apparatus; two cross slides; one to hold a compound slide which, in turn holds the vertical slide and a Foredom-type flex shaft. The other cross slide holds a vertically-mounted Sherline rotary table and a Taig four jaw chuck. The two riser blocks under the headstock are not relevant to the drilling process but are in preparation for eccentric turning, where I will need as much room under the spindle as I can get without seriously reducing rigidity. The stock which I intend to turn -at least initially - will be fine grained wood, likely rock maple and/or holly. It would be great to be able to do OT in metal but that's well down the road from where I am. Hope to hear from anyone who has taken a stab at OT using the Taig lathe! Ramsay Holmes ------- Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 02:17:07 -0000 From: "davideggy2" Subject: Re: Ornamental Turning ("OT") Ramsay, check out James Harris' site http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jeharr/ Keep us posted Dave ------- Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 13:44:42 -0000 From: "rrh0001" Subject: Re: Ornamental Turning ("OT") Thanks Dave. James Harris has done some great OT work on his modified Grizzly lathe and his site is quite a helpful one. I think a number of his ideas are applicable to OT on the Taig, particularly his cutting frame. Of course it would have to be scaled down to fit on the short bed space of the Taig but building one of these, to accept 1/4" square tool bits, is high on my To Do list. Ramsay ------- Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 15:55:55 -0000 From: "Lynn Livingston" Subject: Re: Feed and Speed. In taigtoolsx~xxyahoogroups.com, "Aahz." wrote: > Anyone know where I might find Feed and Speeds for milling Iron Wood? I don't know where you could find that info; I couldn't either. I mill and lathe desert ironwood. I get this from a supplier in Arizona that cuts it locally. I also machine steelwood, ebony and stabilized woods. You will find it easy to find a comfort zone by experimenting at first. I've only managed to blow apart one piece and that was by using too much pressure with a too dull bit. These woods likes light cuts with a sharp tool. On the lathe, I generally run at 2000rpm and take .010 at a time with carbide. Spinning slower is okay, just cut slower. HSS makes a smoother cut for me, but with a lot of cutting requires some sharpening during the job. With either type bit, I dress them up before I start on these types of woods. On the mill, I haven't had many issues. I just use a sharp bit (HSS) and take conservative cuts. I think I could push it more, but by the time my pieces get to the mill, I've already got a fair amount of work into them and don't take too many chances. For fine work, I do occasionally use carbide v-bits which works fine. I have learned that on these hard woods to take the stock down to manageable size before I start machining. Also, all these woods produce very fine (some toxic) dust that can be a problem respiratory-wise. You may want to consider wearing a particulate mask if not a respirator. I finally broke down and installed a dust collection system because I was cutting so much of this stuff it was beginning to be a problem. Sniffles and headaches followed a day of cutting. Also, when I can, I try to cut with the grain. Also, lately I've only purchased stabilized ironwood. That really helps but it is also more expensive. But, in stabilized form, it is more consistent throughout the blank. Regards, Lynn Livingston ------- Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:57:04 -0800 From: "Dave Hylands" Subject: RE: Anyone turn wood on their Sherline? > Hello: I am thinking of turning some model parts from MDF (medium > density fiberboard) on my Sherline lathe using Sherline's wood tool > rest (PN 3038). My concern is over the dust created. Might I need to > take special measures to protect the spindle bearings, lead screws, > and ways on my lathe? Is sawdust fine enough to be a maintenance > problem? Thanks. Hi Bryan, I've turned a fair amount of wood to make pens. I have some pictures posted here: http://www.DaveHylands.com/Wood-Working/ You'll also see how I adapted the Lee-Valley tool rest to work on the Sherline. I've done a bit of machining of MDF on my mill, http://www.davehylands.com/Robotics/Phantom/ but not on the lathe. It does generate lots of dust, but it seems to be pretty reasonable on the mill. The mill generates less dust than my table saw does cutting MDF. The lathe, however, throws the dust everywhere. When I make pens, I use cardboard guards to keep the wood shavings in a reasonable radius of the lathe :) There are also some relatively inexpnesive plastics that you might want to try out as well. I've been machining some HDPE, and it's relatively cheap, and machines really nicely. Another material that I've been playing with is Alumilite. You can make a mold of something, and then cast a part in Alumilite. The Alumilite machines very nicely. http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/robotics/projects/casting/casting-1.html http://www.alumilite.com/ Dave Hylands Vancouver, BC, Canada http://www.DaveHylands.com/ ------- Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 17:46:44 -0000 From: "n2562001" Subject: Re: Anyone turn wood on their Sherline? Bryan, if none of this turns out the way you want it to I would suggest the following. For small parts Use a fine grain wood soaked in wood hardener available from any Hardware store before machining. This will also eliminate most of your dust problem if your parts are small. For machining I use standard brazed carbide tools as they come from the factory at high speeds. Using the lathe compound will give far better control when machining small parts. Jerry Kieffer ------- Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 06:49:47 -0000 From: "pbreed" Subject: Cutting Balsa Ribs CNC style... [taigtools group] I want to report on a success. I have cut some test balsa ribs [for a model aircraft] and the fixturing and cutting was perfect. My fixture is as follows... I counter sunk a 4" x 16" x 3/4" aluminum plate so I could bolt it to the T Slots on my CNC Mill. I then surfaced the whole thing with a fly cutter. I then drilled small guide marks in a long row at 1" spacing. I drilled all of these holes and tapped for 8-32 socket head screws. Then I took a small piece of bar stock and drilled holes every 1" along the whole length with a #18 (Tight clearance to an 8-32). Now I bolt the big plate to the mill. I use a dial indicator to square and center the 8-32 holes. I install 1/16 carbide bit loosely in the mill. I lower Z over the plate until the carbide bit is resting on the plate. I then tighten the collet. I raise Z by 0.010 and zero Z. I rough cut a piece of balsa longer than is needed for the rib. I hold my drilled bar stock up to the balsa and drill a #18 hole in the balsa by hand. I push a screw through the hole the balsa holds it and I drill another hole at the other end of the rib using the bar stock guide to get the spacing right. Now I bolt the would-be rib to the fixture plate with 2 or more socket head screws. Now I run my CNC program with the mill set to max spindle speed. The [small carbide] bit cuts the balsa well and all of the test patterns worked perfectly! No burning, almost perfect. Just a tiny wisp on the bottom side of the balsa that vanishes when you run your finger over it. Monday night I try real ribs! Paul Comments from the store owner... PS: After you discover how well these [small carbide bits] perform and when they eventually wear out, you can get more from our website http://shop.vendio.com/Moranent/store.html ------- Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 20:08:07 -0000 From: "pbreed" Subject: Cutting Balsa Ribs Report... I've put up a description of the process used to cut balsa [model airplane] ribs on my CNC taig. http://www.rasdoc.com/splinter/RibsCut.htm Paul ------- Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 17:27:14 -0000 From: "klickcue" Subject: Re: Cutting Balsa Ribs Report... Hi Paul, Enjoyed your tutorial. Thanks. I don't cut balsa, but some of my woods are nearly as soft. I noticed that you are using a PCB cutter on your balsa. A PCB cutter is more like a rasp since fiberglass chips so easy. Looking at your cut balsa picture, I see dust instead of wood chips. If you were to change to a router bit or a mill cutter that is designed for wood, it would make your cutting experience more enjoyable with less cleanup. A suggested cutter would be 2 flutes and large helix angle to clear the chips. A good wood mill cutter would last you a long time for the type of work you are doing, so the expense over time would be low. For the wood fibers that are attached, most will easily removed with a stiff brush. Have Fun! Chris ------- Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 03:12:09 -0000 From: "pbreed" Subject: CNC Balsa (Better) After much feedback I bought a new 2 flute cutter and tried again. The ribs are much better with no sanding needed. This is shown as an added last picture on the web http://www.rasdoc.com/splinter/RibsCut.htm or you can see it directly http://www.rasdoc.com/splinter/RibImages/image036.jpg ------- Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:29:09 -0000 From: "Paul Busman" Subject: New member here... [atlas618lathe group] Hi-- I just got an invite to join this group, and it seems like a good idea. You can see what I do with my lathe at www.busmanwhistles.com I do all of the woodworking on my Atlas (Sears, actually), but I farm out the metal parts of my whistles to a CNC machine shop who does them faster and more uniformly than I could ever hope to. ------- Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:47:50 -0000 From: "Hank" Subject: Turning fine hardwoods on metal lathe / was: new member >I do all of the woodworking on my Atlas (Sears, actually) Paul, the whistles are really beautiful. Could you tell us just a little about how you go about doing the wood turning on your lathe please? Hand held traditional chisels or tool bits held rigidly in a toolpost? If you're using chisels do you have some kind of rest you've made or bought? I've tried a little wood turning using HSS and brazed carbide bits in a regular toolholder and it worked but there was a kind of tearing and raising of grain that was pretty rough (plain dowel stock and white ash). I could file it and sand it smooth easy enough, but it should be able to be done more smoothly. Also have a wood chisel tool rest I milled but I don't have any chisels for it yet. Hank ------- Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 11:54:29 -0000 From: "Paul Busman" Subject: Re: Turning fine hardwoods on metal lathe / was: new member I use carbide bits held in a custom made toolpost. Softer woods will tear a lot but some of the really hard smooth grained woods turn almost like plastic. If you want to turn softer woods, you can take fairly large initial cuts, but make your last cuts very fine. BTW-- I drill my bores using a custom made gundrill held stationary in the tailstock. Then the outside diameters are turned with the wood mounted on an arbor. Between drilling and final turning, I let the wood "rest" for at least a month for the moisture inside the wood to equilibrate and for any shrinkage to take place. Generally, I have to re-gundrill the pieces to get them on the arbor, or sand the inside using sandpaper on a dowel mounted in my 3 jaw. I'd like to try some freehand turning, if anyone has any ideas for a good tool rest. Also btw-- these little lathes are great for pen making, which is terrific practice for wood turning in general. The pens are great, inexpensive gifts. ------- Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 13:57:09 -0000 From: "Paul Busman" Subject: Re: Turning fine hardwoods on metal lathe / was: new member The man who taught me whistlemaking is also a machinist for GM and had access to their big CNC machinery in his spare time. He uses the same type of lathe to make his own whistles and flutes and made me the same tool rest he uses. It's a machined block of aluminum with a groove at the proper height to accept 1/4" shaft carbide bits (actually two grooves-- one on a flat side, and one angled), plus a hole to accept a boring bar. Tools are held in place with hex head setscrews. I don't use the diagonal crossfeed for whistle-making, so I removed that and had a local machine shop accurately drill and thread a 1/4" hole in the middle of my crossfeed, and the tool holder is mounted using a threaded rod with a nut holding it down on top(handle welded to the nut so no tool is needed). ------- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:13:39 -0700 From: Frank Perdicaro Subject: Bigger Motor Possible? [atlas_craftsman] It is possible to replace the smaller motors with something larger for woodworking. In fact woodworking is about the only place you want more power (torque at speed) on one of these lathes. Keep in mind if you switch back to metalworking, a high powered motor will destroy the parts of the lathe not meant to be run at high power. On my lathe I have personally sheared the teeth of the bull gear ($$$ number one) and the teeth off the input gear to the QC box ($$$ number two) when operating at high power settings cutting metal. So it is not a myth: these [ATLAS METAL] lathes are not designed for use with anything more than a half hp motor. Even with a good half hp motor (like mine) you can really hurt your wallet. OTOH, I recently switched my cheap Chinese bandsaw to a good half hp GE motor, new bearings from McMaster Carr, link-drive belt, a good pulley, Lennox Diemaster variable pitch blade and Mobile One synthetic gear lube and it now cuts like a totally different tool. It now cuts about a square inch of mild steel every 10 seconds whereas before it would take a LONG TIME to make some cuts. ------- Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:36:25 -0600 From: "jerdal" Subject: Re: Wood and metal turning on the same machine? [atlas_craftsman] > Are there any special lathe care and maintenance concerns > with turning wood and metal on the same machine? > Or is it the plain old keep it clean rule that applies? I have done this...metal cutting lathes are oily on the ways and other parts. Wood lathes are dry on the "ways" etc. Chips of wood or sawdust brush off or fall off of dry wood lathes. Chips of wood and sawdust stick to, absorb, and mix with the oil on metal cutting lathes, forming a gunky mess that is really hard to clean off. But there is no avoiding the oil. I'd figure on doing wood not very often, and doing all of it you need at one time...less cleaning. Better yet, buy a $100 used wood lathe and keep it far away from the metal working area. JT ------- Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 01:26:38 -0600 From: Jon Elson Subject: Re: Wood and metal turning on the same machine? >Are there any special lathe care and maintenance concerns >with turning wood and metal on the same machine? No. The major concern is that wood dust will cause corrosion on the lathe. It is not the mixing of workpiece materials, but just the wood dust. Even running a table saw or router near the lathe will coat it with a fine layer of sawdust. Some woods are not particularly corrosive. Maple seems to be really bad (acidic). So, a thorough cleaning of the ways, chuck and cutting tools, and with special attention to the exposed leadscrew, is in order. Then, you can liberally wipe on fresh oil, and it should be fine. The oil will then protect it from any fine dust that settles later. >Or is it the plain old keep it clean rule that applies? Yup, you got it. The combination of sawdust and oil can make quite a gunky mess, too. Jon ------- Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 14:21:12 -0000 From: "joegourlay" Subject: Re: Wood and metal turning on the same machine? John, I turn mostly wood on mine, but I have metal ambitions and the ways on my machine are in unusually excellent shape. So, I'm pretty careful about their condition. Cleanliness is correct. There are certain things I absolutely would not do on my lathe. First among them is turn green oak or green maple. The shavings from green oak will quite literally corrode the ways within an hour, and I'm not talking about a little surface stain either. I follow rules. First, I always completely vacuum my mess after every session, period. Second, I apply oil VERY generously. Third, I keep a cloth well sopped with oil, and will use this to wipe down the ways frequently and after vacuuming the chips. Fourth, I keep a large oil sopped cloth that covers the ways and saddle when the lathe is not in use, then I cover the whole lathe with a bedsheet. Fifth, during each cleaning I consciously use an oily toothbrush to clean out the drive screw. Here soon I'm going to get my MIL to sew me an apron to go around the the Jet tool post. This apron will cover the ways and the screw while turning without the risk of getting it caught in the chuck (don't ask). Realize also that an integral part of woodturning is using fine abrasives to sand on the lathe. I oil flood the ways (and I do mean flood) and cover them with a piece of saran wrap before I do this. You really don't want 500 or 2000 grit abrasive on them. Nor do you want your christmas presents to have splinters... If you are going to do wood, you need to move both the tailstock and saddle and clean carefully around the tailstock/saddle-to-ways interface EVERY TIME and VERY CAREFULLY. These areas are where little bits get trapped and cause big problems. Also, it's a good idea to carefully clean the interface where the spindle slides into the tailstock. Oil, oil, oil, and more oil. And more oil after that. If you are going to do green wood you absolutely MUST cover the ways and screw, even if you do clean thoroughly. Also, it's VERY important to clean up the chips UNDER the lathe and on the "bridges" between the two ways. Green wood evolves a LOT of water vapor during turning and while the chips are drying. You don't want to create a humidity cloud. Toothpicks are good to keep around. Points on Usage. You'll need new chucks. You will have NOTHING but frustration using metal chucks on wood. "Oneway" makes a "Stronghold" chuck that has an spindle insert to fit the AC lathe. Get both the #1 and #2 jaws for that chuck. You will also need a tool post. I use a Jet tool post on mine. Two things. First, you'll need to make a plate to go under the lathe to hold the tool post base to the ways. I use a piece of quarter plate jigsawed: ain't gotta be pretty. Second, and VERY important. Woodworking tool posts are made for WW lathes and WW lathes have crappy ways and nobody cares about dings on them. You do NOT want to put a WW tool post, with it's rough crappy casting, directly on your ways. I use a piece of 1/4" lexan between the post and ways on my machine. YOU MUST CLEAN UNDER THIS EVERY TIME. Sounds like a lot of ass-ache, and it is. But it's also a LOT of fun. If you have friends with kids, you can become a hero real quick by turning big wooden yo-yo's. Takes half-an-hour, start to finish, and the kids love 'em. ------- Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:44:03 -0800 From: "Kenny Wu" Subject: Cutting wood with Taig I'm cutting wagon wheels with my Mill and it's working ok. However, after cutting, it leaves a lot of fibers on the piece. I thought it was the wood being not hard enough so tried it on hard wood, it's a little better but still leaves fibers that I have to clean with a file or knife. I am using a 1/2" 4fl endmill to cut to shape then using a 1/8" 4fl endmill for details. Can it be the # of flutes? What is the best for cutting wood? Would using a 2 flute or 3 flute endmill cut better on wood? Heard the more flutes, the finer it cuts so ordered the 4fl. Anyway, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Also, I am cutting at 15ipm (since it is wood). I tried slowing down to 8ipm and still the same. Can't figure it out. Also thought it might be the wood is not dry enough. Tried leaving the wood in the sun for an hour before cutting and still the same. Thanks! Ken ------- Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 15:25:47 -0000 From: "n2562001" Subject: Re: Cutting wood with Taig Ken: Since I hate woodworking and woodworking machines, I also machine wood on the metal Lathe and Mill. First I use standard End Mills but they need to be new, sharp high Qaulity (USA) or equivalent. As they say the ones from China/India "Won`t cut It". However even the good End Mills will leave unwanted fibers as you say in some woods. What I do to help eliminate this is coat the work piece with wood hardener before milling from any Hardware store. The brand seems to be unimportant. Jerry Kieffer ------- Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 08:05:45 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: Larry Richter Subject: Re: Re: Cutting wood with Taig Why not use a tool designed to cut wood? A carbide router bit? The edges are seriously different in design and sharpness. ------- Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 09:08:27 -0000 From: "whirlingdervish1950" Subject: Re: Cutting wood with Taig As a matter of fact that is exactly what I use! I am working (Oregon) Maple Burl as well as SPAULTED Maple Burl, and work with regular 1/3 inch shank router bits. I also have done some experimental "finger jointing" using 1/8 inch solid carbide cutters. I say experimental only because I have not set up the CNC portion yet; I am still using the mill in "manual" mode. My Burl blanks vary in thickness from 0.125 inches to a tad over 3/8. there is a difference in working the wood "stabilized (I allow super thin superglue to "wick" into the woods) that is a real help with spaulted woods.... and just "dry" Most all my wood has been air dried for over three years, I will post some photos after I get the CNC up and running to show what is being done in my shop! ------- Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 16:18:06 -0500 From: Ken Jenkins Subject: Re: Cutting wood on the Taig [taigtools] In addition to what has been mentioned concerning the design of router bits being more suited to cutting wood, wood cutting routers run x~xx 20,000 RPM. For this reason I made an adaptor to mount a Dewalt laminate trimmer in place of the Taig spindle. This works extremely well and the adaptor was not difficult to make. I started with a Taig riser block as the base. You can see the details here: http://kj.cloudcitydigital.com/pages/taig_mill_d660mount.html Ken Jenkins ------- Re: New member Posted by: "Tom Gould" jgestarx~xxearthlink.net Date: Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:22 pm (PDT) In sherlinex~xxyahoogroups.com, "rjd233" wrote: > Hello everyone. I joined the group today, and am considering > purchasing a 4400 mainly for bamboo fly rod components. rjd: The Sherline is perfect for bamboo rod work. Be aware, the diameter through the spindle is only 0.405". Still, this is large enough for all but the biggest fly rods. I recall stuffing a #2 1/2 Heddon ferrule through mine as a test. If you really need the extra diameter, Sherline can bore out the spindle for an extra charge. However, avoid turning cork grips on the Sherline lathe! Turning grips throws a lot of abrasive grit with the cork dust. The abrasive grit and cork dust WILL eventually bugger up your lathe! If possible, make/buy a separate rig for turning grips. A separate grip turning rig would also mean you could do all your precision machining with the shorter, less expensive Model 4000 lathe. If you must turn grips on the Sherline, cover the ways and cross slide with aluminum foil while you are working. And vacuum everything clean BEFORE you remove the foil. For a good source of nickle silver semi finished reel seat components see: http://brooksiderod.tripod.com/components.htm On the other hand, skip making your own ferrules - buying them is cheaper and easier in the long run. Tom ------- I could use some advice on Atlas 12" capacity and limitations Posted by: "JB" bellcr8vx~xxairmail.net Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:36 am (PDT)n [atlas_craftsman] I want to turn some banjo rims (wood) but need the precision of a metal lathe with power compound crossfeed. (I think). I would be working basically on a hollow cylinder approx 3-3.5 inches long and up to 11.5 inches in Outside Diameter. On a 12" lathe would I be able to "machine" the outside of this cylinder or would the work be too big for the size and reach of the cross slide? What tool to use? Boring bar or would a regular cutter holder work? I have lots of questions as I am a total rookie but I'll keep it simple for now. Any advice from the Voice of Experience would be greatly appreciated. ------- Re: I could use some advice on Atlas 12" capacity and limitations Posted by: "Jon Elson" elsonx~xxpico-systems.com Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:56 am (PDT) You should be able to do this, but it is pushing things a bit. You would have the carriage entirely to the right of the workpiece. By turning the compound rest to move parallel to the carriage (handle pointed right to tailstock), you put the T-slot parallel to the cross-slide. This allows you the move the toolpost about 2" farther away from the spindle. Using an appropriate tool holder, you should be able to turn anything that doesn't hit the bed ways. You will have to keep the speeds modest at this diameter, and support the work well to keep it from jumping off the spindle. Jon ------- Re: I could use some advice on Atlas 12" capacity and limitations Posted by: "Joe R" jromasx~xxcolumbus.rr.com Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:47 am (PDT) A shop made boring bar consisting of a 5/8th inch bar with a hole drilled near the end for a 1/4" hss tool bit and then a set screw in the end to hold it would work fine for a boring bar. Or you could fashion a one-piece boring bar if desired. Since you're cutting wood, the large overhang of the tool should not be a problem. Once you've gotten the part round (balanced), you should be able to run the lathe at top speed to get a nice finish. ------- Re: I could use some advice on Atlas 12" capacity and limitations Posted by: "Bob May" bobmayx~xxnethere.com Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:02 pm (PDT) It will be all overhang work as the slide won't be able to get under the work. Considering that it is wood, you won't have the problem of flexure that working with steel would have. Just make sure that the gibs are snugged up so that you don't have flexure that way and go to town. Remember that the max. distance from the center of the chuck is 6" so you'll have to cut the wood close to stay within that dimension. Bob May http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net Replace the obvious words with the proper character. ------- Re: Thank you for your replies... next question... Posted by: "JB" bellcr8vx~xxairmail.net Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 2:02 pm (PDT) How critical is the power feed? I have a Delta 12" 46-450 with the compound cross feed... but must be moved by hand. Would this work OK or do I need the power feed? Might be an elementary question, but I have never done this before. As a matter of fact, I've never turned anything either ... just finished rebuilding/restoring the Delta lathe. I appreciate your help. ps... The shop built boring bar might be a little over my head right now. Thanks, JB ------ Re: Thank you for your replies... next question... Posted by: "Glenn N" sleykinx~xxcharter.net Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:16 pm (PDT) You won't need the power feed. The only tricky part will be dealing with the overhang and getting the feed parallel to the ways if you use the top slide. If you are sliding the carriage then it will be right anyway. I rarely use power crossfeed. Power longitudinal feed gets used all the time though. The other trick is to make your mandrel that will hold the ring. You will want to turn that piece first and decide how you will expand it to hold the ring. Keep in mind that the ring has to be held in its final shape as any distortion from the mandrel will amplify on the outside. Personally I would prefer to do this on a wood lathe with a hand held tool. I would also mount the ring on the mandrel and let it set a day or so before I started turning. YMMV Glenn ------- Re: I could use some advice on Atlas 12" capacity and limitations Posted by: "John R. Sandhagen" jrsandhagenx~xxcsupomona.edu Date: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:34 pm (PDT) >>> First, it is called a "pot" or "shell." The "rim" is the upper edge of the shell on which the head or the tone ring rests. The weight of modern banjos does not come from the wood, but from a metal "tone ring" mounted between the head and the rim of the shell. The denser woods, like those sitting at the bottom of the Great Lakes for the last 100 years or so, vibrate more efficiently, but they are not a drastic source of increased weight. There are two ways of making a banjo shell. The wood block method uses solid blocks of wood with a trapezoid-shaped cross-section. The ends are cut and sanded to fit flush against each other. I think you use 8 blocks, but I have not looked in a long time, it may be 12. There is a balance between too few blocks being too massy to vibrate properly, resulting in dead tone or cracks in the wood, and too many glue joints. Glue is appled to the ends of the blocks and the shell assembled. A belt is then cinched around the shell to pull all the blocks together until the glue has set. When it has set for a couple of days, you start sanding ...and sanding...and sanding, until you get the dimensions and finish right. The other method uses a laminated wood block. This sounds like what the poster wants to do. First, you laminate several layers of wood into a block 12" X 12" X 2". The wood you use depends on the sound and look you want, but a typical example is: 1/8" maple 1/8" Rosewood 1/28" Mahagony 1/16" maple veneer 3/4" X 1" X 1' strips of your preferred hardwoods (12) 1/16" maple veneer 1/16" rosewood veneer 1/16" maple veneer 1/4" X 1" X 1' strips of your preferred hardwoods (12) 1/16" maple veneer 1/28" Mahagony 1/8" Rosewood 1/8" maple The bottom layer should be 14" X 12" to be used as an anchor for clamping. There are some tricks to clamping I won't go into, here. When you are finished and have this lovely laminated chunk of wood two inches thick and a foot square, you are ready to start cutting. You make the inside rough cut with a router. Some folks use a router to make the outer cut, as well. Others would rather use a band saw for the outer cut, chuck the whole thing into a WOOD LATHE and true it with a SHARP straight lathe tool. Then, you can sand it on the lathe to a very fine finish. The final diameter should be either 11" or 12 ", as these are the sizes of easily available banjo heads. 11" is most common for both open-backed and resonator styles, with some of the open-backed styles using a 12" head. You can still get skin heads, but polymer heads are much better. They don't change tension with moisture and temperature like skin heads do and they don't split nearly as easily. If you DO use a skin head, you have to loosenit when you finish playing, lest the air get dry and cause it to shrink until it splits. So much for that, now back to playing one. I hope this helps him get started. <<< I got this from the trombone forum, hope it helps. ------- Re: Miniature Wood Turning on the Sherline Posted by: "Dave Hylands" dhylandsx~xxgmail.com Date: Tue Jan 2, 2007 9:28 am ((PST)) On 1/2/07, montanaaardvark wrote: > I have the wood tool rest for the Sherline, but no tools to do the > kind of free hand turning woodworkers do. All the sets I see are > about as long as my 4400 lathe, so I think I need something smaller. > What are guys using? Hi Bob: My main turning tool is in fact a big full-size gouge. I opted for the following (item C - this is my full size gouge) http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=43176&cat=1,330,43164,43175 and the following for detail work: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=20263&cat=1,330,43164 Lee Valley also carries a set of Micro turning tools: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=20235&cat=1,330,49233 Dave Hylands Vancouver, BC, Canada http://www.DaveHylands.com/ ------- Re: Miniature Wood Turning on the Sherline Posted by: "John Maki" minitool41x~xxyahoo.com Date: Tue Jan 2, 2007 1:55 pm ((PST)) Bob: Most of my wood turning is on very hard woods (ebony, rosewood, etc.) and I usually begin with a dowel less than one inch in diameter. If I must start with square stock, I rough it into a round using conventional metal tools in the cross slide. I make my own cutters using 3 inch lengths of 1/8 inch square tool steel. I grind shapes as needed on each end of the steel (two cutters for the price of one!) and use a Starrett size "D" pin vice as the tool handle. (These pin vices are often available individually or as a set on Ebay.) Over time, I have accumulated a pretty broad set of cutting tools which can be changed in my single handle in seconds. Virtually all of my wood turning is done with a Sherline Smith tool rest. I have found this to be an excellent (though pricey) addition. It is very flexible and easy to position very close to the stock so there is a very short lever-arm acting on the tool. It can also be removed in seconds if needed. I have used the same setup to add small details to brass turnings as well, but I suggest you do some practice before you try this. Work with the tool shape and take very small cuts. John Maki ------- Re: Miniature Wood Turning on the Sherline Posted by: "Tom Bank" trbankx~xxpaonline.com Date: Wed Jan 3, 2007 6:55 pm ((PST)) I am using a set of mini-turning tools from Sorby. They are about 10" long overall and of excellent quality. WoodCraft handles some of the Sorby tools of this size. A full range can be seen and purchased through the Sorby web site. See http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/ I would guess that the Henry Taylor set offered by Lee Valley would be good, probably as good as the Sorby tools. The Lee Valley U.S. made set I would question. It is W-1 steel. It should be O-1 or some other Oil tempered steel. As for the Penn State tools, they are Chinese, you are taking your chances with possible Harbor Freight quality. OK if you don't intend to use them much. Regards, Tom Bank ------- NOTE TO FILE: The above conversation was extracted from a sherline group discussion starting Jan 2, 2007 titled Miniature Wood Turning on the Sherline. Then the topic changed to types of steel and heat treatment. The rest of that conversation can be found here in the Heat Treating file starting Jan 4, 2007. ------- Re: wood turning [atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "Dave" imdave87x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Feb 16, 2008 7:07 pm ((PST)) "mks442" wrote: > Hi everyone,new member. I have a 10" alas lathe.according to the > manual a tool rest for wood turning was available.anyone ever > heard of this and know where to get one? thanks for any help. Mark I see them come up on ebay from time to time. I think there is one seller that makes them and posts them on ebay. David ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "jerdalx~xxsbcglobal.net" Date: Sat Feb 16, 2008 8:00 pm ((PST)) I don't know if you will like it when you DO find one. Wood turning on the metal lathe makes an awful mess, and may not be worth the effort. JT ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "Christian Herzog" zogx~xxstg.com Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 10:55 am ((PST)) Amen to that - I once bought a 10X48 with a turret tail stock to part out that had clearly been used to turn wood - lots of wood. Oil and saw dust make a fearsomely hard setting paste that gets into *everything* and sets so hard that basically it has to be scraped off or dug out with an awl. *MONTHS* of soaking in my parts washer filled with mineral spirits had no effect what so ever. I would keep wood as far away from your metal lathe as you can as it makes a rightous mess that is very difficult to clear up. Since wood lathes are so much simpler, they tend to be quite a bit cheaper than metal lathes so having two might be a real option... Christian Herzog Software Technologies Group, Inc. http://www.stg.com ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "kendall" merc2dogsx~xxhotmail.com Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:01 am ((PST)) "Joe R" wrote: >As another poster responded "you may not like it when you find one". >Wood lathes turn much faster then metal lathes so your results will vary. I think many of the Atlas metal lathes wil run the same speeds as their wood lathes. I used to do quite a bit of woodturning on my metal lathes, normally, for ease of cleaning I'll run the carriage as far from the headstock as feasable, then put the tailstock in font of it and toss a towel over the carriage. Clean the pan of metal chips and wipe it dry before woodturning, that way getting all the chips is easier. Ken ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "rwp399" rwp399x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:19 pm ((PST)) I have occasionally used my 12 x 54 Craftsman 101.07382 for turning table legs. I adjust the tail stock over to create the taper that I want, then use the power feed. This makes it easy to reproduce multiple legs. I have a wood lathe for normal turning. I use a shop vac for clean up. Most of my metal turning is on a SB 9A because it has the quick change gears and power cross feed. Bob Parker ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "Rexarino" rexarinox~xxgmail.com Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 2:41 pm ((PST)) I found a wood turning tool rest at a local wood workers store on the close out table - apparently a special order someone never picked up. Pictures in the Atlas_Craftsman_pics group, WoodTurning folder. http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/atlas_craftsman_pics/photos/browse/8394 The large black bar in the front of the first picture is an eccentric that pulls a loose clamp up against the underneath of the ways to lock the tool rest in place. An eyebolt is captive around it, and slides freely to allow the tool rest to pivot and move in/out to suit the need. I had to make a new clamp, as the one supplied was sized for a different lathe. I had a scrap of rectangular tube, so I cut it to the correct length to fit under the ways on my 12" Craftsman, then I rounded opposite corners so I could sit the assembly on the ways, rotate the rectangular tube under the ways, and clamp with the eccentric. Drill a through hole and install a captive nut and I was using it in no time. Although this doesn't slide as well as it might, it is very satisfactory for my use. As for wood turning on a metal lathe - my tools are intended to be used. They aren't on a throne, they're on a bench in a shop where I pursue my hobbies with whatever tool works. I don't have money or space for a good wood lathe, so the Craftsman gets to do the work. I can get the lathe just as dirty by turning cast iron pipe, and the only way to keep it useful for the long term is to clean it when it needs it. I use a shop vac dedicated to lathe and mill swarf and then I clean the shop vacuum periodically to reduce the danger of fire. YMMV rexarino ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "jerdalx~xxsbcglobal.net" Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 6:13 pm ((PST)) To each their own....... I have turned wood twice on my lathe (Logan) and cleaned up another that was used a LOT for wood. I think I'd rather clean up cast iron or grinder swarf. There is something about the wood that seems to be harder to clean and more of a hassle. But then I always have lots of oil on the ways. JT ------- Re: wood turning Posted by: "kendall" merc2dogsx~xxhotmail.com Date: Sun Feb 17, 2008 9:43 pm ((PST)) I think that's the problem, first time I did it it was a real pain to clean up, afterwards I wiped off all the oil and covered the crossslide etc., made it MUCH easier to clean up when done. I too have seen lathes that were packed full of wood shavings and as far as I can tell it was because of the oil; dry wood gets into a tight spot with some oil and swells up so it's permanantly locked in. ------- Woodworking [sherline] Posted by: "a3sigma" dcclark111x~xxcomcast.net Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:43 am ((PDT)) Hello Group, I'm about to embark on a model engine project that will involve a fair amount of woodwork. While I've done some carpentry and cabinetmaking, miniature machining and model making in wood is new to me. Some advice, please. Type of wood: Micro-Mark sells miniature dimension lumber in something called Basswood. Is this good stuff? Does it machine well? The local hobby store sells balsa, but that seems a little weak and soft for my application. I have some leftover oak flooring that I could rip down, but oak may be tougher to work with. Should I apply a sanding sealer before machining? Cutters: Sherline's standard HSS, or should I buy router bits? Is it advisable to get the high speed pulley set? My workhorse cutters are high helix micro grain carbide; they're razor sharp and seem to cut everything well.Any reason not to use them on wood? Tooling: I'm looking at a couple of schemes to set up the lathe or mill to function as a miniature table saw and disk sander. Any good ideas here? What else is important, that I don't know enough to ask about? Everybody's a newbie at something; now it's my turn to be one. TIA DC ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Dennis Cranston" dlcranstonx~xxearthlink.net Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:24 am ((PDT)) Basswood is used extensively in model railroad work. The wood from Micromark is of good quality and I have used them as a source when the local shops don't have what I need. If you are in the US, the Hobby Lobby chain carries a fairly good selection. One alternative type and source of wood for modeling in the larger sizes is poplar. I cut it down on my 4" table saw to match specific dimensions. (Somewhere there is a table saw attachment for the Sherline lathe.) Poplar is available in 'craft' sizes on most DIY stores. Also you might want to check out Woodcraft and their Maple or Mahogany. Both are very good for small details. www.woodcraft.com Wood is a good. ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "n2562001" jlkiefferx~xxcharter.net Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:58 am ((PDT)) DC: I hate woodworking but will respond anyway. First you can machine wood in the same manner you machine steel using the same tools. I seldom use anything but Carbide tooling on wood. Dennis gave good advice when suggesting close grain hard woods for machining and model making. In addition I would suggest using a hardware store wood hardener before machining on a lathe or mill. This will also allow greater detail to be machined in the wood. This product works aspecially well with coarser grain hardwoods like Oak. While Sherline equipment can be easily configured to cut and sand wood, I still prefer full size equipment to cut pieces that will be machined. For fine detailed cutting I use large diameter fine toothed slitting saw blades in place of standard blades in my table saw. Fine toothed plywood blades also work well some larger projects. Jerry Kieffer ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Greg Procter" procterx~xxihug.co.nz Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:39 am ((PDT)) Hi, lots of good advice so far from everyone! Several points: - excessive tool speed will only result in the wood burning. - wood-working routers and the like may well not be as accurate as engineering tools. - The teeth on saw blades etc need to be smaller than the dimensions of the material you're cutting. My old metal work teacher from school always said that "you need three teeth of your hacksaw cutting at any instant to get a clean cut". That doesn't readily translate to 2 edge milling cutters and the like, but you can be sure that a 16TPI circular saw blade is going to make a mess of 1/16" wood! Regards, Greg.P. ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Mati Raudsepp" a7a04912x~xxtelus.net Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:14 pm ((PDT)) DC, I don't have much experience with wood on the Sherline but needed to make a base for my Upshur Twin engine (see link). I don't have any power wood working tools so I cut the base to approximately the right size with a hand saw and used the 2000 mill with a 3/8" HSS end mill to square the sides. The decorative grooves were done with a 1/4" HSS ball mill. The red oak machined beautifully. http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii260/MatiR_bucket/UpshurTwin1.jpg Hope this helps, Mati ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Ron Ginger" rongingerx~xxroadrunner.com Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:41 pm ((PDT)) Oak is a particularly bad wood for models. It is a very open grain, and if you scaled the grain size you would have gouges in your model equivalent to several inches wide- hardly a nice finish. Mahogany is similar, and I have never been able to understand why model boat kit makers use it, just because the real boat did. It looks awful on a model. I have used cherry for parts on model boats and as lagging on steam engines and it looks very nice and takes a fine finish. Basswood is used where you want no grain to be apparent- it's a very smooth, featureless wood. It's nice for structure but not for a finish surface that should look like wood. Balsa is useless for anything but light weight model airplane structures. I use my Sherline lathe for thickness sanding. I put a sandpaper drum in the spindle and I made a wedge that fits on the table. By adjusting the cross slide I vary the distance between the drum and the wedge, hence the thickness of the wood. My wedge is a 10:1 triangle, so a .01 move of the table is a .001 change in thickness. It works great. Generally wood needs to be cut much faster than metal- note routers run at 25-30,000 rpm and table saws at 3,000 or so. Cutting slower just rubs the tool on the wood, likely burning it and wearing the tool faster. ron ginger ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Dennis Cranston" dlcranstonx~xxearthlink.net Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 2:58 pm ((PDT)) Great idea!!! I have been thinking about the thickness planner from Micro Mark (about $200) but a simple wedge and my lathe will work just as well for the occasional piece I need to bring down to thickness. Thanks Dennis in Houston ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "John Maki" minitool41x~xxyahoo.com Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 5:10 pm ((PDT)) I have been using my Sherline machines for several years to shape wood for my miniature tools. I also find that hard, close-grain wood produces the best results. My woods of choice are ebony, cocobolo, and boxwood. Using standard metal-cutting milling tools, I am able to produce wooden components with a smooth, polished surface right of the mill. The only surface finish I add is a light coat of museum wax to protect against finger-prints. You may also want to look at some of the harder fruit-woods like pear. Usually this is a very tight grain, and also cuts well. I think it is available at ship-model supply sites. Several years ago I added a CNC system to one of my mills. I have found this to be a very useful addition as I can now draw and cut any two- dimensional shape with absolute precision. It is particularly useful when you need identical multiples of a part. You can see some of the results at: http://minitool.blogspot.com/ Enjoy the process! John Maki ------- Re: Woodworking Posted by: "Mati Raudsepp" a7a04912x~xxtelus.net Date: Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:13 pm ((PDT)) "Maritz, Johan" wrote: > Hi Mati, had a look at the photo of your Upshur twin. What a beauty!!! > I like it very much. Are there somewhere a place where I can read about > your building experience, things to bear in mind? Regards Johan Maritz Hi Johan: Thanks for the kind words. No, there is no place where I have published anything about building this engine. In fact, it was the first substantial project that I undertook after buying my Sherline lathe and mill about 2 years ago. Prior to this I had no machining experience of any kind except building plastic models and "craftsman grade" model railroad stuff. At first, I just "made chips" on scrap and made some tool holders, my version of a W.H. Smith tool rest and the like. Then I thought that to progress further I needed something fairly complicated but with good drawings to follow. I subscribed to Model Engine Builder Magazine http://www.modelenginebuilder.com/ and found the plans for the Upshur twin in Issues 7 and 8, 2006. The articles are well supported with tips on the build. This is a nice project as it just gets to the point where the Sherline equipment is stressed so one has to be careful. In addition, experience is gained with aluminum, steel, brass, delrin, making springs, etc. I am embarrassed to say that I have not run it yet although it does spark. I live in an apartment so messing around with smoky engines and fuel is not on the agenda. I must take to the shop at work and get it running. If it runs, it would be a bonus as I am a model builder at heart and took this on as learning project. As soon as I decide what to build, I would like to start on something like Jerry K's John Deere. Still agonizing on what to build. In the meantime, I decided further training was necessary and started the Hoglet Engine featured in Model Engine Builder Issues 10 and 11, 2007. Not recommended for Sherline equipment as the cast iron cylinders are too big but I have got almost everything else done. Will do the cylinders on an old 9" Southbend that I have access to at work. Progress pics here: http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii260/MatiR_bucket/HogletFront.jpg http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii260/MatiR_bucket/HogletRear.jpg http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii260/MatiR_bucket/HogletLeftSide.jpg In any event, for the other newbs out there, don't be afraid - get a bunch of metal and start "making chips"; it will come to you. Regards, Mati ------- woodchuck chucking wood? [taigtools] Posted by: "mark" me2cyclopsx~xxyahoo.com Date: Tue Jul 8, 2008 4:50 pm ((PDT)) I have been doing a good bit of woodturning on my taig lathe. Glue blocks are great but take too long to setup, build, replace ... I'd like a chuck proper for holding wood; would a small "real" wood lathe chuck like "http://www.pennstateind.com/store/CSC500.html" work better than the 4 jaw self centering from taig? I was thinking that I could make new jaw plates for it and turn the dovetail style jaws but would end up about the same $$. Anyone know what length the wood lathe chucks are? Too heavy for the taig? ------- Re: woodchuck chucking wood? Posted by: "Nicholas Carter and Felice Luftschein" felicex~xxcasco.net Date: Tue Jul 8, 2008 5:57 pm ((PDT)) That Penn State chuck looks like a good value, given the price of the 1060. The only concern is the weight, possibly, for higher speed turning. See our homepage at www.cartertools.com/nfhome.html ------- Re: woodchuck chucking wood? Posted by: "kenvalaska" kvaughanx~xxacsalaska.net Date: Wed Jul 9, 2008 5:59 pm ((PDT)) I have used the Taig for wood turning and have a Bonnie Klein version also. The Bonnie Klein is a Taig headstock and tailstock mounted on a custom bed with adapters for the dovetailed system. The BK allows about an inch more capacity. I have both the OneWay Talon and the PSI 3000 chucks. The PSI also fits the 1 by 8 standard threads for the midi lathes. The PSI allows the use of a small Cole jaw set for specialized clamping. There is not much room for the straight Taig, but for small stuff, the BK version works ok. I more commonly use 2 inch or 3 inch face plates with pine blocks OR use wooden blocks that have been drilled and tapped for 3/4 by 16 threads. Yup, tapping threads in wood is not a really big deal. The mass of the chucks is high, and they work best at slower speeds with the better use of motor torque for coming up to slow speeds quickly. What "sucks" on the taig is the tool rest schema. Bonnie does have it better done on that respect, but it is functional and does well for small wooden objects. Think small bowls, pens, pencils, honey dippers, etc. Christmas ornaments turn well. My taig chucks work well for holding wood also -- but lack the dovetail or similar jaws for the Talon or 3000 series chucks. Be sure to not assume that the dovetail will resolve the challenges of a catch. Not a good assumption at all. Bonnie will sell the parts to convert the lathe bed, but you will generally not find it to be especially cost effective vs getting a midi lathe at the right time and price. Ken Vaughan from Juneau Alaska (now on TDY in Portland Oregon) ------- How to hold wood dowels for turning [sherline] Posted by: "Charles Fox" cafox513x~xxgte.net Date: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:29 am ((PDT)) I'm trying to trim the end of some 1/2" wood dowels, holding them in the three-jaw chuck of my Sherline. And I'm gouging them all. Tape in layers didn't help. And there's no 1/2" collet so far as I can tell. Any idea how I can trim these (to fit ferrules on the end) other than holding them by hand and chewing the end off? ------- Re: How to hold wood dowels for turning Posted by: "Alan Marconett" KM6VVx~xxSBCglobal.net Date: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:37 am ((PDT)) I'd make up a split collet! Basically a cylinder of about 1" diameter and perhaps 1" long, turned down to 3/4" for about 3/4" of an inch. This allows it to "square up" against the face of the chuck. Bore it out 1/2" diameter. Split one side of the collet lengthwise with a slitting saw. The split allows the collet to compress slightly and apply an even pressure on the object being turned. The dimensions aren't critical at all, I just make them up. Use the scrap you have on hand. Alan KM6VV ------- Re: How to hold wood dowels for turning Posted by: "Charles Fox" cafox513x~xxgte.net Date: Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:50 pm ((PDT)) I found a piece of plastic rod, trimmed it, necked it down to 3/4 to fit inside the chuck, drilled it out to 7/16" (largest drill I have!) and considered using a slitting saw. Laughed. Used the Dremel's ditto to start, then a razor saw in a miter box. It worked! Hey, piece of cake. But I'm still gluing the ferrule brass on, just to be on the safe side. Thanks, Alan ------- NOTE TO FILE: The following conversation took place amongst the Galoots in the Oldtools mailing list. See: http://swingleydev.com/archive/ The intent there was to come up with inexpensive (nearly free) chucks for woodturning. Some of these folks cheat and use electron burning lathes while others do just fine with foot-powered pole or treadle lathes. A very few folks there do woodturning on a metal lathe. ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:14:16 -0500 From: "James J.B.N. DuPrie" Subject: [OldTools] sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates Hi Folks, I'm in need of faceplates for a lathe. The problem is that the thread is 1 1/4 x 8, which seems to be almost impossible to find. Anyone have any pointers? Oldtool: bench planes are GREAT for rounding up stock on a lathe, if you pedal slow enough.... J ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:38:15 -0500 From: "Mike Hamilton" Subject: [OldTools] Re: sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates 1 x 8 is a common size for mini and midi sized lathes. 1.25 x 8 is a common size for larger units - Delta, General, Jet, Powermatic. You local Rockler or Woodcraft ought to have them or be able to get them for you. PSI and Craft Supplies USA ought to have them online. If your need is less than the heaviest duty, you might consider buying a tap and making your own from wood. Same sources for the tap (as well as the regular run of metal-head places). Regards, Mike ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 07:57:35 -0800 From: James Thompson Subject: Re: [OldTools] Re: sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates Mike is correct about wooden faceplates. I forgot to mention that because my mind was on metal faceplates. What I do is to tap a hole in a good hardwood, like white oak, screw it onto the lathe, turn it round and face it off. Then I glue it to another, larger, piece of wood. I screw the newly made piece into the lathe and then round up and face off the larger piece. If you need screw holes, just mark a couple of diameters while the piece is turning, then drill whatever number of holes you want. When the larger piece needs replacement, just remove it by parting off just behind it, saving the threaded part, then add a new piece. I have probably 2 dozen faceplates in total because I like to start a turning, then leave it to dry before I put it back on the lathe. By having a lot of faceplates I always have one with nothing attached to it so I can start something new. Another cool thing about the wooden faceplates is that you can glue a piece to it when you do not want to use screws. Then you just part it off when the turning is done. ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:27:28 -0700 From: "Ken Vaughn" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Re: sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates James DuPrie says: >OK, now THIS is why I love the porch [Oldtools group]. Never thought of wooden faceplates. A wooden faceplate system and lots of other shop made lathe adapters are shown on my website. These are described in detail on the lathe page(s). Here are a few teasers: http://home.comcast.net/~kvaughn65/faceplate_system.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~kvaughn65/4inch_faceplate.jpg Ken Vaughn My lathes and shopmade adapters: http://home.comcast.net/~kvaughn65/lathes.html ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:39:42 -0600 From: "Mike DeLong" Subject: Re: [OldTools] sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates James, I agree with the previous posts that user-made wooden faceplates are a great way to mount your turning. However, if you feel you need the superior strength of a metal faceplate with wood screws, check out Bill Noble's offerings at this link: http://www.wbnoble.com/ They're not pretty, but they work great and are as cheap as I have found. Mike ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:13:08 -0800 From: James Thompson Subject: Re: [OldTools] sort of OT, but only sort of: Lathe faceplates Hey, I just noticed that he has 1"-8 faceplates with a left hand thread. I can't make that and it is what is required for the outboard end of my Delta spindle. I definitely want one of those. ------- Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:43:19 -0900 From: "Ken Vaughan" Subject: [OldTools] RE: OldTools Digest, Vol 40, Issue 33 1 by 8 is a common lathe headstock thread - and the easy cheap mostly old tool method is to use a 1 by 8 nut from a hardware store. (I was able to find these in Western Auto in Juneau Alaska as a box of 10 for $27 that should be available most everywhere. I glue them into a suitable hole in a piece of dense wood and have the makings of a faceplate/glue-block. The Tap marketed by Jerry Beall is available from lots of woodturning supply sources, but a 1 by 8 tap was also available for similar cost from the same hardware vendor. Lee Valley sells very nice Don Pencil faceplates, but there are steel ones available from Jet, Delta, Packard Woodwork, Woodturners Catalog and others. I use the nut and threads cut into maple or birch more commonly. Ken in Juneau -- who figures if I can get it in Alaska, it should be in every corner store "down south" ------- Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:27:52 -0500 [Oldtools group] From: Mike Siemsen Subject: Re: Re: [OldTools] Screw box tap [In response to the original question as to how threads were cut on the threaded fence adjustment arms found on early wooden plow handplanes.] scott grandstaff wrote: > it seems likely to me that, at least in the early screw arm plow, the > threads were cut with a tap box. I would bet substantial money on this > statement being true. > Cut with a screwbox, by an expert at wielding one, who went to lathe > work as quickly as possible, and into machining as it became available. > I wouldn't be shocked to find that the very first screw cutting lathe > of all was designed to cut wooden threads, but that is only a guess. > Pretty sure all that has to be true somewhere in the history of wooden > screws. I use a metal working lathe with a router mounted in the tool post to cut threads in wood. Turn lathe by hand, not under power. This is better than a screw box because I can cut almost any pitch and diameter. Mike ------- Re: Atlas Lathe [atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "William Abernathy" williamx~xxinch.com Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:12 am ((PDT)) harley1993 wrote: > Hello to this fine group. As a new member I am delighted that there is place to seek answers. I have my Dad's 50's vintage Atlas Metal Lathe with a quick change attachment. I am a wood worker and have just begun to figure out what this thing will do. It actually works well and I have cleaned it up so at least it looks nice. I am in need of some woodworking parts that are missing or were never there to begin with. Mainly I need the gadget that sits in the tail stock to hold the work piece stead as I turn the wood. Based on what I have been reading Clausing is the place to go for these so unless someone has a better idea, I will call them since they do not list parts online. Thanks and until then I am turning. The [9" and bigger Atlas lathes'] tailstock has a #2 Morse taper in it. The accessories that fit into this taper are modular components available from any number of tool vendors. Clausing has a limited supply of parts available, and in all likelihood, they won't have anything that fits in the tailstock. The gadget that fits in the tailstock is called a center. I don't know enough about wood turning to recommend one for that purpose, but for metal use, your best bets are either a rolling center or a fixed center. The rolling center turns with the work on an internal bearing. The fixed center does not turn, and the work turns past it on a layer of grease, which would not likely sit well with your woodwork. By the way, there is a matter of terminology here. Some people call rolling centers "live" centers. Others insist that any center in the tailstock is the "dead" center. While I fall into the latter camp, I believe I'm on the losing end of linguistic history. Most tool catalogs refer to the rolling dead center as a "live center." If you do use your lathe for woodturning, bear in mind that you will have a lot of cleaning up to attend to, and it will probably shorten your lathe's lifespan. Wood dust will gum up the gears, the bearings, and the various oily penetralia of the machine. The Atlas can certainly handle limited bursts of wood turning, but if that's your only interest, you would be better off trading for a quality woodturning lathe, which has better speed, swing, and a nicer setup for the job at hand. For the price of a used Atlas, you can get a very nice wood lathe. William A. ------- Re: Atlas Lathe Posted by: "jmartin957x~xxaol.com" Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:54 pm ((PDT)) William is right on target regarding the various centers. I'll take it a step further. There are different types of center points. Most commonly use for metalworking is the standard 60 degree male cone center. It is found on solid centers as well as on ball-bearing centers (which, as William points out, are now incorrectly referred to just as "live" centers). You can use it - either solid or ball-bearing - in the tailstock of a wood lathe, but it is not ideal. The wedge action of the center can split your work, especially if small. For woodturning, you would use it dry or maybe with a bit of wax. The center point most often used in the tailstock for woodturning is a cup center. It is similar to the 60 degree center except that the point is more acute, and is surrounded by a cup, or ring. This cup keeps the wood from splitting, and allows you to put more force on the center. It may be found in solid or ball-bearing styles. For the solid ones, you can use wax if you wish. There are lots of other specialized center types. Half centers (solid only) so you can get closer to the work. Pad centers. Large cone centers for hollows or pipe. Large hollow centers. Centers with through holes for drilling. Etc. For a woodturning center, I'd try one of the woodworking suppliers - Rockler or Woodcraft Supply. Or one of the specialty woodturning suppliers, such as Packard or Woodturners Supply. Start with a solid cup center, then go to a ball bearing center with interchangeable points if you decide you like turning. If your tailstock is Morse #2, any Morse #2 center will fit. John Martin ------- Re: Atlas Lathe Posted by: "Joe R" jromasx~xxcolumbus.rr.com Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:18 pm ((PDT)) As John pointed out those for wood are different then for wood. Here's a link to some that Grizzly has available. You didn't say what size it is (maximum diameter over the bed ways) so we can't say what morse taper the head stock is but the tail stock is most likely #2 Morse Taper. http://grizzly.com/products/Live-Center-Set-For-Wood-Lathe-MT2/H8021 Joe R. ------- Re: Atlas Lathe Posted by: "David LeVine" dlevine144x~xxmyfairpoint.net Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:16 pm ((PDT)) I have a Jet 10x14 wood lathe. It has a #2 MT tailstock. Anything that fits a minilathe (like the Jet and the Delta) should work well. You MAY have to cut off the tang a bit if it causes problems. David G. LeVine Nashua, NH 03060 ------- Re: Atlas Lathe and tailstock space ball Posted by: "wheezer" wheezer606x~xxverizon.net Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:18 pm ((PDT)) Group: Cutting off the tang reminds me that I use a space ball in the tailstock bore of my 10F to release the centers that have been "altered". Pops them right out when the pressure is released. lance ------- Re: Atlas Lathe and tailstock space ball Posted by: "James Walther" indianfourriderx~xxyahoo.com Date: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:27 pm ((PDT)) OK. I'll bite. What's a space ball? I thought is was Mel Brooks' Star Wars spoof. ------- Re: Atlas Lathe and tailstock space ball Posted by: "wheezer" wheezer606x~xxverizon.net Date: Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:37 am ((PDT)) With kudos to Mel Brooks, this item is a small highly elastic ball used by woodworkers to compensate for the expansion / contraction of wooden panels inset into dados in cabinet door frames. They are available in packs from most woodworking supply houses. See here: http://tinyurl.com/yjc6r8f lance ------- Atlas Lathe Posted by: "catboat15x~xxaol.com" catboat15x~xxaol.com Date: Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:43 am ((PDT)) The tailstock for wood is a lot different than the one used for metalwork. So be sure you get the correct type for your Atlas. But, really I would not like to see an Atlas in good shape used mainly as a wood lathe. Using a metal lathe for wood work generally means a rusted up metal lathe because a metal lathe with its carriage, cross slide, gears etc has a lot more crevices and "tender spots" where sawdust can be collected. Sawdust attracts moisture, moisture attracts rust and there goes a good metal lathe. I would be willing to buy you a new wood lathe and trade you for the old in good shape metal lathe any day of the week. John Meacham Littlerock, California 12 inch Atlas lathe, Mini-mill, band saw and a rusty file. ------- Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.27440 Lathe. [atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "Richard" mmreo42x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sun Oct 31, 2010 7:43 am ((PDT)) I have the original manual but I can't/or it doesn't have any info as to if there is a tool rest for turning wood or how to turn wood on this lathe. Any info would be of great help. Thanks for Reading Rich ------- Re: Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.27440 Lathe. Posted by: "Bruce Freeman" freemab222x~xxgmail.com Date: Sun Oct 31, 2010 4:58 pm ((PDT)) My copy of the "Manual of Lathe Operation..." has a Chapter 9 "Woodturning on the Metal Lathe", in which is shows (in Figs. 298, 325 &c.) the use of a tool rest for wood-turning tools. It is not clear from the photo where this is mounted. Judging from the height of the stem it's mounted on, it mounts directly to the lathe bed. BTW, if you're new to woodworking, read up on the wood. Some woods are distinctly allergenic, if not outright toxic. Bruce NJ ------- Re: Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.27440 Lathe. Posted by: "David Beierl" dbeierlx~xxattglobal.net Date: Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:00 pm ((PDT)) I understand that Atlas used to have a proper wood-turning rest that clamped to the bed. What they sold me ten years ago for my 618, though, was a couple of rests that attached to the compound slide and I found completely pointless since the carriage and slides were always in the way. I fabricated something that worked ok for me -- I'll take a picture of it. Wasn't hard to make. Yours, David Beierl -- Providence RI USA Atlas 618 6"/3/index.html" lathe ca. 1941, shiny-new Taig mill. ------- Re: Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.27440 Lathe. Posted by: "Jacjie" irene4popsx~xxyahoo.com Date: Mon Nov 1, 2010 5:34 am ((PDT)) Please post the pics as soon as it's convenient for you. I've been toying with the idea for a while, but can't settle on an attachment method. ------- Photos Re: [atlas_craftsman] Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.274 Posted by: "David Beierl" dbeierlx~xxattglobal.net Date: Mon Nov 1, 2010 12:06 pm ((PDT)) Photos are in the dbeierl album in the group photos. Yours, David ------- Photos Re: [atlas_craftsman] Tool Rest for Wood Turning on a 101.274 Posted by: "paul_probus" paul_probusx~xxyahoo.com Date: Mon Nov 1, 2010 7:38 pm ((PDT)) Nice. In the mid '80's my dad made one similar for me when I was in middle school because I found wood turning to be so much fun. The one he made is not too different from what was shown in the photos. Luckily, when my dad gave me the lathe, he still had the wood turning stuff we had bought back then. I had been afraid after the few moves he made in the last 15 years that they had been lost. I can post photos of the tool rest and tool rest holder if you would like. My one recommendation is that you should look at the 3rd party tool rests that are commercially available and make a receiver in the tool rest holder that fits. I believe most of the full sized lathes use 1" diameter posts on the toolrests: http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/store/Lathe_Accessories___Tool_Re sts___Robust_Comfort_Tool_Rest___robust_tool_rest?Args= That way, if you find you want/need a specialty toolrest you have the option to make it or buy it. The other disadvantage of the one my dad made and the one in the photos is that there is no 1/4 turn tighten/loosen for either setting the tool rest height or moving the tool rest in and out. Since I have been using my Craftsman lathe for penturning, I can't get the tool rest as close in as I need it to be. I plan to see if I can modify a full size wood lathe tool rest holder (probably from Grizzly since they are good about selling parts) to work with the Craftsman metal lathe. But that is on my future ToDo list. Paul ------- wood turning attachment [atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "Ben D'Avanza" bendavanzax~xxgmail.com Date: Mon May 30, 2011 4:08 am ((PDT)) Was/is there a wood turning attachment for the 12x lathes? I saw references to turning wood in my Atlas manual but no parts descriptions. I don't have room for another machine but I would like to turn wood occasionally, and using the metal cutting tools makes for rough wood. I also had hoped to turn threads on wood, making huge nuts and bolts. I have an AXA toolpost, perhaps a tool rest could be made to fit that or would it need to be stiffer? ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Brad Lehman" lehman.bradx~xxgmail.com Date: Mon May 30, 2011 4:53 am ((PDT)) With enough persistence, you can do just about anything. Personally, I think the finding/building a wood cutting toolrest would be the least of your worries. I had a wood lathe (and still do) for quite a while until I recently bought a metal lathe, so take this for what it's worth: Cutting wood in a metal lathe seems to me like it is going to create a pretty terrible mess. Saw dust and wood shavings mixed with oil... yuck. Many wooda tend to be acidic, which I think would probably speed up rusting if you aren't careful. This isn't a big problem with a wood lathe, since it really isn't a precision instrument. Better wood lathes have a LOT of mass/rigidity though, far more than the typical atlas/craftsman lathe. No criticism, it's just that in wood turning, you are spending a lot of time turning things that are inherently out of balance. I could be wrong, but I would think that even repeatedly rounding square stock would take a toll on the atlas/craftsman. The actual cutting action of a wood lathe and tool is much different than their metal counterparts. Almost directly opposite in fact. With most wood cuts (planing cuts), you actually want to set the tool height slightly above center and rub the bevel on the wood as you cut. This makes the fibers shear off cleanly as they are being supported by the bevel rubbing along. Metal lathe tooling is setup to create a clearance angle so that the bevel doesn't touch the work. In fact, it seems to me like the basic metal cutting setup is more like "scraping' in wood lathe terminology. However, a wood scraping tool relies on a burr on the cutting edge to peel the wood off of the workpiece. I point this out in case you want to keep making attempts at cutting wood using the metal cutting toolpost setup. Personally, I think that with a lantern toolpost you would probably create a good setup and make a nice cut. The problem is that the tool would need adjusted for just about every pass to keep the bevel in the right alignment as the workpiece gets smaller and smaller. If you are space limited, don't get too interested in wood. Much like the metal lathe tooling, you'll find yourself wanting all sorts of tooling for wood as well. And then the inevitable wood cutting vertical bandsaw, etc. Finally, what type of wood are you trying to turn? Some types are downright awful. I would recommend common fir framing stock (yes, like the home depot 2x4s in most areas of the country) as a very forgiving wood to mess around with, and it's cheap too. Turned with the right technique and a very sharp tool, it will look almost polished. ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Ben D'Avanza" bendavanzax~xxgmail.com Date: Mon May 30, 2011 5:03 am ((PDT)) I had not put too much thought into the type of wood yet. I do have a small vertical bandsaw, and a table saw with a router table insert. I thought the 2x4's at Home Depot were pine? I'm no expert by any means. I'm in Dallas, TX. Ben ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Brad Lehman" lehman.bradx~xxgmail.com Date: Mon May 30, 2011 5:13 am ((PDT)) I can tell you that oak is a real pain to turn. All of those pores make it so that what is coming off is more like dust than a ribbon of wood. It tends to be really stringy as well. Anything soft and straight grained is a pretty good place to start. Stay away from anything with really pronounced grains and/or knots. The HD stuff in your area might be Southern Yellow Pine, which is pretty hard for what most people think of as pine. As a matter of fact, some people will go well out of their way to get Southern Yellow Pine as a material for building workbenches. Wood availability is kind of odd. What gets used as framing lumber is whatever is available in the region in abundance. I'm in PA, so it's mostly Fir being used as framing stock. Further south, it's Southern Yellow Pine. From what I understand, out west, redwood is nothing special. Where I live, guys pay large sums of money for it. Supply and demand I guess? ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Tazwell" tazwellbramlettex~xxyahoo.com Date: Thu Jun 2, 2011 5:56 pm ((PDT)) I completely agree with Brad's comments regarding using the Atlas Lathe for wood turning. However if you do get a tool rest (see photo in "Taz's Lathe Tools") and remove the carriage you can at least get a feel for whether you want to get more involved in wood turning. It does become an addicting and an expensive habit. I am a self-taught wood worker, and I have to say that the wood lathe was not an intuitive machine to learn. It was not until I enrolled in the wood turning program in our local community college that I became reasonably proficient. The Atlas lathe is very useful for making speciality tools for use with a wood lathe. I am using this application (and especially this forum) to teach myself metal working, providing tools to my classmates who provide me with raw material and feedback regarding various concepts. The responses of members of this forum to my questions were invaluable during my lathe restoration project, which took more than a year to complete. Many thanks to all. Taz ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Cindy & Wayne Burner" burners4x~xxcomcast.net Date: Mon May 30, 2011 7:02 am ((PDT)) I do have an original Atlas wood turning attachment for the 10" and 12" lathes. It replaces the compound, and fits right over the dovetail. The base is round, and has two set screws with dowel pins. It has an adjustable tool rest post shaped like a "T". The attachment I have came with two sizes of rests. If you can find an old Atlas tool catalog, I have seen the item listed there. Wayne (rice) Burner ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "JACK SIMS" jack-br549x~xxatt.net Date: Mon May 30, 2011 2:11 pm ((PDT)) I made one for my 12" Craftsman/Atlas (that goes on where the compound goes) out of 1 chunk of aluminum, 1 chunk of steel, 2 pieces of 3/4" drill rod, and 5 bolts. Remove the compound, place this thing in its place, tighten the 2 base bolts, adjust the T to the height that you want, tighten 1 bolt and have fun making wood chips -- that is if you are using wood lathe tools. Jack Sims Carrollton, Texas ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Rexarino" rexarinox~xxgmail.com Date: Mon May 30, 2011 2:42 pm ((PDT)) I bought a regular Tee rest and the mount made for a Rockwell lathe from the discount table at a local woodworking store, then made an adapter (a wide threaded plate) to fit under the center ways, much like the tailstock clamp. Rex ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "JACK" jack-br549x~xxatt.net Date: Mon May 30, 2011 8:37 pm ((PDT)) Ben: If all you want to do is make straight or tapered cuts, and turn threads on wood with metal cutting tools you will not need a different tool rest. Just get a insert holder for the AXA that you have now because carbide tools WILL give you a good finish on HARD wood. If you have any more questions send them to me off list. I am turning some wood now on my lathe using carbide inserts and power feed, so at least you get a good finish and a straight piece. Jack Sims Carrollton, Texas ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "Harry Boyd" canerodscomx~xxyahoo.com Date: Tue May 31, 2011 6:54 am ((PDT)) Hi Jack, I'd like to know more about which particular carbide inserts you have found to be most useful when turning wood. I make reel seat inserts for my bamboo fly rods on my A/C lathe and have found that high speed steel bits work best for me. Thanks in advance, Harry Boyd ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "JACK SIMS" jack-br549x~xxatt.net Date: Tue May 31, 2011 7:51 am ((PDT)) They are a bit pricey but one with a real industrial diamond on the tip works the best for me but should last you a lifetime on wood, DO NOT use it on steel, works good on brass and aluminum. I have a BXA toolpost on my 12x36" because I had a lot of 1" shank insert holders from the years that I worked in machine shops so I cut them down to 5/8" to fit the BXA holder; if it haden't been for that I might have gotten a AXA toolpost. Hope that helps you, have fun. Jack ------- Re: wood turning attachment Posted by: "wedhansonx~xxverizon.net" Date: Wed Jun 1, 2011 6:26 am ((PDT)) Hi all: I also live in Pennsylvania, and I believe that most of the lumber made from logs harvested in this state are from hardwood trees like red and white oak, poplar, sassafras, black walnut, most Maples, etc. Most of the conifers go into paper and cardboard manufacture. The framing lumber that you get at Home Depot or Lowe's, etc is almost always Spruce these days. The Douglas Fir that they were made from years ago, is very short supply because of stupid clear cutting, and is now extremely expensive. I have turned many spindles and/or stretchers for broken ones in some chairs that I have repaired. Mostly Oak, Maple or walnut. Special size dowels for tenoning has been found very useful. Hard to find 7/16 or 9/16" ready made dowels in the hardware store!!! I agree that the wood dust is not good for the Atlas metal lathes, so cleaning after use is essential. Well, enough of my rant W. Ed Hanson ------- Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe [myfordlathes] Posted by: "grahamstoppani" graham.stoppanix~xxntlworld.com Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:50 am ((PST)) Had a rather odd job to do for the wife yesterday. She had some candles that needed turning down so they could fit in our glass holders. As you can imagine cutting the wax off the candle was no great challenge. The hardest bit was holding the work. The candles were short and fat which meant there wasn't much room for turning between centres. In the end I used a four jaw chuck but at first the candle was too slippery to be properly gripped without damaging it. My solution was to wrap some emery cloth around the candle to allow the jaws of the chuck to grip it. I'd be interested to hear of the unusual jobs others have done with their lathes and how they overcame the associated problems. ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "tobybishopx~xxaol.com" Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:47 am ((PST)) Hi Graham. Does "turning" down a sponge paint roller count as unusual? It was a thin roller on a long rod for painting behind radiators, but we had several that it wouldn't fit behind. I mounted the sponge and its plastic core on a mandrel and "turned" it to size with a thin cut off disc in my Dremel which was mounted on the tool post at an angle. With the lathe (a Drummond roundbed before I got my S7) at max speed in reverse and the Dremel at max speed the relative speed between the disc and foam was very high and left a lovely smooth finish on the foam. I held a vacuum cleaner hose to collect the dust and the lathe stayed quite clean. cheers Toby ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "grahamstoppani" graham.stoppanix~xxntlworld.com Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 8:22 am ((PST)) I think the turning down a foam paint roller is the current winner of the oddest job so far :-) Re the old sand paper trick, when I mentioned the candle turning episode to my father today (ex-navy artificer) he immediately said "oh, you'll need to hold that in something like sand paper or wet and dry". Looks like I was just re-inventing the wheel there... ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "crawleystones" dickmx~xxwaitrose.com Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:10 am ((PST)) Not particularly unusual, but one of the anti-vibration mounts on my chainsaw had perished and split. It's an old Dolmar, so replacements are not available. Found some cylindrical rubber buffers of the right size lying around, but the mounts had to have a washer attached to one end and a special fitting on the other. Carefully carved these fittings off the original mounts and cleaned off the residual rubber, then had to turn appropriate recesses in the ends of the rubber buffers to accept them. Using the "wrapping in sandpaper" trick in a collet chuck gave enough purchase to turn the recesses using woodturning skew chisel (actually, it's a bit of a cheat - the Myford in use was a Mystro!) Glued the fittings using contact adhesive, and so far, it's working. According to my adhesives specialist (my daughter!) it really needs Loctite 380, but this doesn't seem to be available in less than £50 packs in the UK. Unless anyone knows of a source for small quantities. ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "c j.s" callinicus1953x~xxyahoo.co.uk Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:30 am ((PST)) Googled Loctite 380 to see what type it wa and found this; http://www.midwayuk.com/apps/eproductpage.exe/ShowPro duct?saleitemid=330260 Just a bit cheaper than 50 Quids worth, which will most likely "go off" before you use it all. CJ(UK) [and in a later message] I had to turn down some rubber radiator mounting bushes for a pre-war car. They would not cut cleanly, and as I had no liquid Nitrogen to freeze them, I used a B&D Powerfile, worked a treat. I turned them on a tight-ish fit mandrel so that they were not stretched too much but had enough grip to spin. CJ(UK) ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "Andrew Chapman" Chapmanadx~xxaol.com Date: Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:16 pm ((PST)) I have never turned down a paint roller. But then, I have never been propositioned by one. Kind regards, Andy Chapman ------- Re: Doing unusual jobs in the the lathe Posted by: "karen_ozau" karengx~xxa1.com.au Date: Sun Dec 18, 2011 12:47 am ((PST)) I was restoring an antique rosewood desk & needed to replace some wooden screws, these had (from memory) a pitch of 1/8". I set the gearbox up to the correct feed, mounted an air powered die grinder in the 4 tool turret with a pointed 1/4" router bit. Did a beautiful job of screwcutting such a coarse thread. Can't recall how many passes I did it in. Had to strip the lathe down afterwards to get rid of all the wood dust generated ... but the antique desk was properly restored anyway :) Karen ------- Shaping bits to cut mahogany? [atlas618lathe] Posted by: "sagxazefiro" brightnightcustomsx~xxgmail.com Date: Thu May 10, 2012 12:10 pm ((PDT)) Hey all, I'm about to start a project in mahogany that I will be cutting on the atlas. The project is too precise for hand tools so I will be cutting with the tool post. I have ordered some fresh HSS blanks (3/16") and will be cutting my own tools. Does anyone have any suggestions for tool profile for cutting wood before I begin? With a 90* angle between the tool face and tangent line at the cutting point on the workpiece I was experiencing a good amount of tear on maple. I'm thinking something closer to 60* might be better. ------- Re: Shaping bits to cut mahogany? Posted by: "MIKE Johnson" mjohnsonx~xxgeusnet.com Date: Thu May 10, 2012 2:04 pm ((PDT)) Not sure what you are trying to do, but I can't imagine what would require that type of accuracy on wood. With mahogany you are dealing with a species that has an inverted grain. The grain runs around the tree with a spiral, and to make things worse it changes directions each growing seasons. Mahogany is a bear to work with even for some of the most experienced woodworkers. You will need to get your basic shape and then sand to finish. Note that most all tropical species have the inverted grain charastic, including teak. ------- Re: Shaping bits to cut mahogany? Posted by: "David" daveinnmix~xxyahoo.com Date: Fri May 11, 2012 11:17 am ((PDT)) Wood chisels and wood planes have a cutting angle less than 30 degrees. I'd go for about 25 degrees -- about 5 degrees end clearance and back rake to make a cutting angle of 25 degrees and large radius profile. ------- Re: Shaping bits to cut mahogany? Posted by: "Earle Rich" erich10983x~xxaol.com Date: Fri May 11, 2012 2:47 pm ((PDT)) I turn wood on a metal lathe all the time. Basically, a sharp bit, rounded end and positive angles will work just fine. Turn it close to size and then sand to final dimension. mahogany from central america is pretty coarse, Cuban mahogany from old furniture is much tighter grain and is denser. Generally, the harder the wood, the better results you will get. The best I've turned is lignum vitae, a very heavy wood from central america. Next best is orange tree wood and lilac. Earle Rich www.flickr.com/photos/mvfotog/sets http://granitegeek.org http://mvartisans.wordpress.com ------- Milling wood? [SherlineCNC] Posted by: grangerroadsx~xximonmail.com cornbeltroute Date: Thu May 1, 2014 3:59 am ((PDT)) I'm going to cut strips of railroad ties to 1:120 scale. I've never milled wood, wonder how well wood will cut with small end mills. Will I need particular cutters other than those we use on metal and plastic? Any advice or thoughts anyone would care to make, I'd love to hear 'em. Thanks much, Brian Chapman Cedar Rapids, Iowa ------- Re: Milling wood? Posted by: dcclark111x~xxcomcast.net a3sigma Date: Thu May 1, 2014 4:34 am ((PDT)) Good Morning Brian and Group, All of the wood in my Fulton Steamship Engine model: http://youtu.be/jkuYkmCTiiU http://youtu.be/jkuYkmCTiiU several hundred pieces, was milled on my Sherline. I used 2 flute HSS tooling at high speed. You can also use router bits, Dremel tool bits, sanding drums or disks, circular saw blades... Applying sanding sealer before cutting may give you a better finish. I used Basswood. David Clark in Southern Maryland, USA ------- Re: Milling wood? Posted by: "Elizabeth Greene" elizabeth.a.greenex~xxgmail.com Date: Thu May 1, 2014 4:54 am ((PDT)) For milling wood and foam I use a Harbor Freight 1/8" spiral cutting bit in the Jacob's chuck. I have to do finish sanding to knock off fuzzies and remove mill marks. I'm sorry I don't have the specific feed rate or depth information. ------- Wood turning on a 4400 lathe [SherlineCNC] Posted by: "Robert Dunn" dunnrfx~xxtelus.net robertdunn987 Date: Sun Nov 8, 2015 3:20 pm ((PST)) Hello all, I am turning 1" maple and cherry dowels on my Sherline 4400 lathe to make long tapers for a cane using the standard tool holder with metal turning bits. It works OK, but the wood tears quite a bit, rather than making a smooth cut. I'm not CNC with it yet, but will consider it if this project works out OK. Has anyone done wood turning using this lathe. (I have turned freehand on a Taig lathe quite a bit, but this project requires using the cross slide and hand feeds for precision.) I would appreciate any help. Thanks, Bob Dunn ------- Re: Wood turning on a 4400 lathe Posted by: "Rick" crvtfanx~xxcomcast.net accelo Date: Sun Nov 8, 2015 8:30 pm ((PST)) Hone the bit I suggested nice and sharp. On hard woods it will leave a very nice finish. On real hard woods like ebony or violet wood, rosewood, or cocobolo you can get metal like surface smoothness, as if you turned brass. ------- Re: Wood turning on a 4400 lathe Posted by: "dunnrf" dunnrfx~xxtelus.net robertdunn987 Date: Sun Nov 8, 2015 8:56 pm ((PST)) Thanks Rick, I have been thinking the past few hours of grinding a bit much like a wood turner's skew chisel, which is pretty much the solution you came up with. I'll try that this week and report back. Thanks again for your help. Bob ------- Re: Wood turning on a 4400 lathe Posted by: clivef63x~xxgmail.com clivefouche Date: Sun Nov 8, 2015 9:02 pm ((PST)) I use Sandvik turning inserts that are normally used for machining aluminium and are therefore very sharp for wood turning. I also run in full CNC, have full control of everything that is going on, and I get perfect results. ------- Re: Wood turning on a 4400 lathe Posted by: "dunnrf" dunnrfx~xxtelus.net robertdunn987 Date: Mon Nov 9, 2015 4:00 am ((PST)) Clive, There is a bewildering array of inserts in the Sandvik catalog. Can you narrow it down a bit for me? Also, how do you use them? Is there a holder? Thanks, Bob ------- Re: Wood turning on a 4400 lathe Posted by: clivef63x~xxgmail.com clivefouche Date: Tue Nov 10, 2015 12:36 am ((PST)) I have three holders: SVJBL 1010K 11-S-B-1 left hand SVJBR 1010K 11-S-B-1 right hand and SVVBN 1010K 11-S-B1 neutral. These all take the VCGX110302-AL H10 insert for aluminium. They all fit nicely in the 3/8 Sherline quick change tool holders. There are inserts for steel and other materials that use the same holders. VCGX11 is the bit to watch for when choosing an insert. The Sandvik catalogue does tell you what inserts go with which holders. The inserts fit into bigger holders but bigger holders don't fit Sherline tool posts. ------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ This is just one of some 80 files about machining and metalworking and useful workshop subjects that can be read at: http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------