Have you seen the pictures of Pluto, being returned by the New Horizon space craft??!! It's amazing what they can do with only 200 watts of power!!!!!!!!!!

 

I finally got a little lathe time this week. Mostly it was making a jig, but hey, any lathe time is good time! 

 

While I was making the "American Girl" knock-off boat, I needed to make the oars. As a sailor you would think I would know about these but the aircraft carrier didn't use them. Any way, I needed to make a small "handle" on the end of each oar. I also needed to center drill a 3/8" dowel for some eye hooks.

 

 

 

 

The lathe seemed the obvious choice to create them. However, the oars were actually 3/8" diameter dowels. Not going to be easily done between centers. I had been thinking about making collet chuck after seeing one done by David Reed Smith- http://www.davidreedsmith.com/articles/allwoodcolletchuck/allwoodcolletchuck.htm. This seemed the perfect time to get started. My idea was to combine Mr. Smith's design with something I had seen in a machine shop.

 

I started with the compression hand wheel. It will thread onto the head stock. My original intent was to drill the hole to the proper depth and tap the threads. Unfortunately, my 1" x 8 tap has almost 3/16" of metal extending beyond where the threads begin. The tap bottomed out with only a few turns. I drilled the hole thru the piece. Tapped the threads and then glued on an additional piece.

 

 

 

Next up was the tapered holder. I used a piece of hard maple and turned it round. Drilled a 3/8" hole thru the length of the piece. Next I tapered the holder to match my headstock's taper. Finally to the bandsaw to cut 4 relief cuts to allow for compression.

 

 

 

 

The tapered part of this jig needs to created for each diameter of the piece it is designed to hold.

 

The dowel is inserted into the holder. Leave enough protruding to extend past the compression wheel.

 

 

Thread the compression wheel onto the head stock and sung it down.

 

 

 

The upside is that it worked!! The down side is that it didn't work very well.

 

First mistake- not measuring the diameter of the hole down inside of the head stock. It was just a scoch over 3/8". That size limits the length of larger diameter pieces because they couldn't extend thru the headstock.

 

Second mistake- once the tapered holder was jammed into the headstock I could barely get it back out. Either the maple was not hard enough and compressed or there was just too much friction. I even tried waxing the maple but it didn't help. I finished what I needed to do, but it'll take a little more engineering to make this a workable jig.

 

Here's a short video on turning a tool handle from the Wood Whisperer-

 

 

Safe Turning

I would'be turned the handle between centers as a separate piece and glued them on with a tennon.

Lew,

Didn't you state in another thread that the aircraft carrier you were on had sails?

Were the aircrafts like this?

Larry, I bet you loved the new Sherlock Holmes Movies didn't ya! A ton of steampunk in those movies!

Larry, I bet you loved the new Sherlock Holmes Movies didn't ya! A ton of steampunk in those movies!

 

 

John,

Haven't seen them.

That's why we didn't need oars, Larry! BTW, that was one of the earlier, unsuccessful stealth aircraft.

John,

Haven't seen them.

They are great movies Larry, I believe two were created with Robert Downey Jr. If you ever get a chance check them out. Being the steampunk guy you are, those movies will entertain you for that reason alone.

I would'be turned the handle between centers as a separate piece and glued them on with a tennon.

 That would have been a lot easier, John. I always seem to make things more difficult than necessary.