Dr.Al
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Not directly, but possibly indirectly. I use https://render.com - they might well use cloudflare
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Dr.Al
Forum Supporter
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I haven't been using the lathe much over the last few months, but I wanted to have a bit more of a go to try to improve my turning skills. Following advice from someone on the woodworking forum, I did a one-day woodturning course on Saturday with Paul Hannaby in the Forest of Dean. The morning was spent making this out of a lump of oak:
Okay, that doesn't look like much, but the idea wasn't to make something pretty, it was just to practise skew chisel techniques. It started off with practising getting a good finish on relatively straight sections, then we did some peeling cuts to reduce the diameter followed by cutting into a corner with a good finish. We then went on to cutting V-grooves and finally beads. I'd never tried cutting beads with a skew chisel so that was really quite challenging and the advice and suggestions were really helpful.
I started off the afternoon by making a bowl out of a lump of ash:
That was really instructive and definitely helped me feel a lot more comfortable using a bowl gouge than I had before the course. I decided to leave it unfinished during the course (to save time) and instead applied Mike's Magic Mix after I got home.
Once the bowl was finished, I made a small box out of brown oak (again finished with Mike's Magic Mix after I got home):
I really enjoyed making that box and I'd like to have a go at one myself sometime soon (although I might cheat and use a Forstner bit rather than doing everything with the lathe tools). He had a home-made hollowing tool that worked extremely well for cutting the sides and bottom of the box; I've ordered some 300 mm lengths of 12 mm high-speed steel so I can make one for myself (along with a round, square-ended skew chisel that makes beads much easier).
None of the above was done on my little lathe: I used Paul Hannaby's beast:
However, I did take my lathe along to the course and set it up on a mitre saw stand:
That enabled me to try the odd technique (mainly skew chisel stuff) on my own lathe so that I could convince myself that the improvements I was seeing in cutting action were a result of what I'd learnt and not just down to using a "proper" lathe.
Okay, that doesn't look like much, but the idea wasn't to make something pretty, it was just to practise skew chisel techniques. It started off with practising getting a good finish on relatively straight sections, then we did some peeling cuts to reduce the diameter followed by cutting into a corner with a good finish. We then went on to cutting V-grooves and finally beads. I'd never tried cutting beads with a skew chisel so that was really quite challenging and the advice and suggestions were really helpful.
I started off the afternoon by making a bowl out of a lump of ash:
That was really instructive and definitely helped me feel a lot more comfortable using a bowl gouge than I had before the course. I decided to leave it unfinished during the course (to save time) and instead applied Mike's Magic Mix after I got home.
Once the bowl was finished, I made a small box out of brown oak (again finished with Mike's Magic Mix after I got home):
I really enjoyed making that box and I'd like to have a go at one myself sometime soon (although I might cheat and use a Forstner bit rather than doing everything with the lathe tools). He had a home-made hollowing tool that worked extremely well for cutting the sides and bottom of the box; I've ordered some 300 mm lengths of 12 mm high-speed steel so I can make one for myself (along with a round, square-ended skew chisel that makes beads much easier).
None of the above was done on my little lathe: I used Paul Hannaby's beast:
However, I did take my lathe along to the course and set it up on a mitre saw stand:
That enabled me to try the odd technique (mainly skew chisel stuff) on my own lathe so that I could convince myself that the improvements I was seeing in cutting action were a result of what I'd learnt and not just down to using a "proper" lathe.
Dr.Al
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Since getting back from the woodturning course, I was keen to have a few more goes at all the techniques as soon as possible in order to fix them better in my mind. I started off by slicing off a tiny little bit of sweet chestnut from one of the offcuts from my garden table project. The offcut was about 70 mm square and about 35 mm thick and it was soon turned into this diminutive little bowl (again finished with Mike's Magic Mix):
Feeling buoyed by the lack of any dig-ins when turning that, I then got a slightly bigger blank (ash this time) and turned this simple bowl:
That one was finished with Mike's Magic Mix as per the previous bowls.
Finally for now, I got a pretty looking bit of English walnut and made yet another bowl, this time finishing with sanding sealer and beeswax.
I'm feeling a lot more confident with bowl work now. All the ones I've made at home have needed a fair amount of sanding on the inside surface to get rid of small ripples, but I think there was less and less as I made each one. The bowl gouge shear scraping cut that Paul taught me definitely helped with getting a good finish on the outside, as did the use of a hot-melt glue stick as a test to see whether the outside shape of the bowl was "fair" (bending the glue stick over the rim of the bowl and then sighting along the rim to look for light under the glue stick).
The next thing I think I'll do is a bit of practice with the skew chisel on that oak spindle to try to cement those techniques into my muscle-memory.
Feeling buoyed by the lack of any dig-ins when turning that, I then got a slightly bigger blank (ash this time) and turned this simple bowl:
That one was finished with Mike's Magic Mix as per the previous bowls.
Finally for now, I got a pretty looking bit of English walnut and made yet another bowl, this time finishing with sanding sealer and beeswax.
I'm feeling a lot more confident with bowl work now. All the ones I've made at home have needed a fair amount of sanding on the inside surface to get rid of small ripples, but I think there was less and less as I made each one. The bowl gouge shear scraping cut that Paul taught me definitely helped with getting a good finish on the outside, as did the use of a hot-melt glue stick as a test to see whether the outside shape of the bowl was "fair" (bending the glue stick over the rim of the bowl and then sighting along the rim to look for light under the glue stick).
The next thing I think I'll do is a bit of practice with the skew chisel on that oak spindle to try to cement those techniques into my muscle-memory.
Mick Annick
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Lovely shape on the walnut bowl 
Shiny Steve
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That’s fantastic progress there, it’s so much harder than people make it look. That walnut is lovely and chestnut is stunning very under utilised timber.
Dr.Al
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The lathe has had a couple of minor upgrades since I finished it a few months ago. The first of these was something that I was always considering doing but didn't as I didn't have the required material (and I was trying to make it from what I had in stock). I've since bought a couple of metre long 40 mm × 8 mm steel bars, so these got attached to the bed with some screws from underneath:
This was just a case of drilling and tapping a row of holes in each bar and then drilling the box section through with a clearance drill and then opening out the bottom side of the box section to allow clearance for the head of a cap screw. The bars could then be clamped around some 12 mm thick spacers (to get the two bars perfectly parallel) and then screwed to the bed.
The advantage of this upgrade is that it guarantees that the two sides of the bed are parallel for the whole length. A little bit of distortion is inevitable when welding, so there was a very slight bow in the box section. It was much more minor than I expected and probably would have been fine: with the tailstock adjusted to be a snug but sliding fit in the middle of the bed, it ran smoothly but snugly along most of the bed but was a bit too tight in the last 60 mm or so near the right-hand end of the bed. For all but the longest spindles, that wouldn't have been a problem but with the extra bars added it runs smoothly along the entire length of the bed and was also much easier to set up as I could ditch the eccentric 11 mm diameter adjuster pins shown in this image...
... and replace them with plain 12 mm diameter pins with a central 6 mm hole:
The second modification was also fairly simple. When I visited Dolphin Antiques a few months ago, one of the cheap sets of chuck jaws I bought was a set of button jaws (also known as Cole jaws I believe). Since using them for a couple of bowls, I've found that they're slightly limited in that the bed clearance (centre height) isn't quite enough to allow the full range of chuck jaw movement when these jaws are fitted. With the jaws fully closed, there's plenty of clearance:
If the chuck jaws are opened all the way, the button jaw plates hit the bed:
There's enough travel there to be able to clamp down on most bowls but it's a bit marginal and it tends to require the bowl to be fitted before the chuck goes on the lathe, which just makes the whole process more awkward.
Conveniently, I had a handy lump of 12 mm thick steel plate in a drawer and it was big enough to be cut up to provide these two bits, which had the edges milled and a bunch of holes drilled:
Those plates go under the head- and tail-stock and raise the centre height by 12 mm...
... allowing clearance for the button jaws to be fully used:
Overall view of the upgraded lathe:
The centre height of the lathe is now 140 mm, allowing a theoretical maximum diameter of 280 mm (assuming the blank was already circular and perfectly centred!)
This was just a case of drilling and tapping a row of holes in each bar and then drilling the box section through with a clearance drill and then opening out the bottom side of the box section to allow clearance for the head of a cap screw. The bars could then be clamped around some 12 mm thick spacers (to get the two bars perfectly parallel) and then screwed to the bed.
The advantage of this upgrade is that it guarantees that the two sides of the bed are parallel for the whole length. A little bit of distortion is inevitable when welding, so there was a very slight bow in the box section. It was much more minor than I expected and probably would have been fine: with the tailstock adjusted to be a snug but sliding fit in the middle of the bed, it ran smoothly but snugly along most of the bed but was a bit too tight in the last 60 mm or so near the right-hand end of the bed. For all but the longest spindles, that wouldn't have been a problem but with the extra bars added it runs smoothly along the entire length of the bed and was also much easier to set up as I could ditch the eccentric 11 mm diameter adjuster pins shown in this image...
... and replace them with plain 12 mm diameter pins with a central 6 mm hole:
The second modification was also fairly simple. When I visited Dolphin Antiques a few months ago, one of the cheap sets of chuck jaws I bought was a set of button jaws (also known as Cole jaws I believe). Since using them for a couple of bowls, I've found that they're slightly limited in that the bed clearance (centre height) isn't quite enough to allow the full range of chuck jaw movement when these jaws are fitted. With the jaws fully closed, there's plenty of clearance:
If the chuck jaws are opened all the way, the button jaw plates hit the bed:
There's enough travel there to be able to clamp down on most bowls but it's a bit marginal and it tends to require the bowl to be fitted before the chuck goes on the lathe, which just makes the whole process more awkward.
Conveniently, I had a handy lump of 12 mm thick steel plate in a drawer and it was big enough to be cut up to provide these two bits, which had the edges milled and a bunch of holes drilled:
Those plates go under the head- and tail-stock and raise the centre height by 12 mm...
... allowing clearance for the button jaws to be fully used:
Overall view of the upgraded lathe:
The centre height of the lathe is now 140 mm, allowing a theoretical maximum diameter of 280 mm (assuming the blank was already circular and perfectly centred!)
Hey Al - did you make the rotary broach or was it a purchase? We're looking to learn to use one and the prices are eye-watering, so I was thinking about the Hemingway kit. I wondered if there are other options, or any thoughts on the kit?Another outstanding job is to make the knob for what I've been calling the tool rest slide but is apparently known as the banjo. The knob will turn the hex bar that runs through the banjo. I started by modifying the end of the hex bar to have a smooth shank section on the end:
I then grabbed a bit of 16 mm diameter 303 stainless bar and drilled an 8 mm hole, 20 mm deep, then broached it as deep as the rotary broach would go. The 8 mm drill then went back in to clean out the detritus from the broaching operation.
It got flipped around in the chuck and, with the lathe running backwards, I shaped the end:
It then went in a collet chuck for a hole to be drilled and tapped for a grub screw:
Finally, the collet block was tilted up to allow the cross hole to be drilled for the handle:
After preparing a handle (by rounding over the end of a bit of 8 mm bar), I glued it in place with Loctite 603:
After leaving it for an hour or so, the glue was still not holding (it usually cures in about 5 minutes). My first suspicion was that I'd made the hole a bit big, so I drilled it out bigger and used a 10 mm handle. That didn't stick either, so I started again and made a completely new handle body (with an 8 mm hole again). I meticulously cleaned everything with acetone and tried gluing again but after an hour it was still quite loose. I'm beginning to suspect it might be the age of my bottle of Loctite 603 (which must be getting on for 10 years old now). I've left it for now: if it hasn't cured by the morning, I'll probably just cheat and weld the two bits together!
Next up is another job that's firmly on the "arguably pointless" pile: making a spindle gouge so that I can turn something with the lathe once it is finished. I say this is pointless as I'm intending to buy some HSS lathe tools very soon and at that point it's unlikely I'll ever use the home-made one again. However, in the spirit of "try to make everything and buy nothing", I felt I ought to give it a shot.
What makes it slightly more difficult is that I've never held a spindle gouge in my life and it's difficult to be confident of the geometry based on photos online!
I started with a bit of 16 mm silver steel. I've got a 10 mm double-ended ball-end end mill. I've honestly no idea where it came from (I guess I bought it at a show at some point) and it has never been used. Now's its chance! The silver steel got held in a collet chuck and the mill spindle aligned with the centre of the bar:
I then gradually milled the silver steel away until I'd reached a depth of 13 mm and hence there was 3 mm material left all the way round the slot:
A big end mill was then used to bring the top surface down a bit and hence remove the sharp edges at the top of the slot:
Rather than waiting until after hardening, I decided to rough out the bevel now. This has the considerable advantage that I could be quite aggressive with the bench grinder as I didn't really care about overheating the edge:
It felt a bit wasteful to use such a long length of 16 mm silver steel on what is essentially a throw-away project, so I decided to cut it down to length and use an extension bar. After cutting it down, I faced the back edge and turned an 8 mm diameter shank on the back:
I then filed a flat on the shank:
A bit of 16 mm EN1A was faced off and an 8 mm hole drilled and reamed in the end. The EN1A bar will act as a handle for now.
Next up was heat treatment. I covered the part in a mixture of boric acid and methylated spirits. That mixture helps stop scale forming on the piece, which makes clean-up much easier later. It then got attacked with the MAPP gas torch:
Once it was glowing red and wouldn't stick to a magnet, I dunked it in some water and wiggled it round until it stopped fizzing.
In this photo, you can see the effect of the boric acid, which stayed put in the slot, but didn't stay as effectively on the body:
After a quick rub with some 180 grit wet-and-dry, I tempered it with the MAPP torch again. A bit of 10 mm bar was reduced in diameter slightly (about 9.75 mm at a guess) and wrapped with wet-and-dry paper. That was used to clean up the slot, working up through the grits until I got bored.
Finally, I sharpened the bevel and gave it a hone and I think it's ready for use:
This photo shows the full tool: not the most ergonomic of handles, but hopefully it'll do the job for the limited use I expect this to get:
Dr.Al
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Both!
Mine is the Hemingway kits one. I don't know if there are other options, but I'd wholeheartedly recommend the Hemingway kit. It's really well thought out, works really well, the instructions are excellent and (unlike most of the Hemingway stuff) it's even metric!
Nice one - we'll give it a go! Thanks.
ps - Do you think it'll work ok on titanium cap screws, Al?
Dr.Al
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No idea I'm afraid. I've never tried turning titanium.
