The Marble Tower

This is my latest marble machine, The Marble Tower. It stands around thirty inches tall with the marble storage unit installed on top. It is unique from the others in that it uses one inch marbles. You load twenty six marbles into the marble storage unit on top. Then you push a start button to begin one marble down it's path. Once that marble reach bottom, it activates a trigger that releases the next marble, that goes on a track that is opposite the first track and runs a different course. This continues until all twenty six marbles have run their course.

It is made of cottonwood for the boxes and supports, sapelle for the tracks and ramps, and sycamore for the base and feet.

This was built closely to a design by a man named Richard Brown. I usually link to plans anytime I use plans at all in the construction of a project. From a past bad experience though, I have stopped doing that unless I feel confident that the plans are good enough for anyone to use. While this project was a blast to build, and I had fun with it, due to issues I had with the plans, I can see where some people would have some issues building this from the plans. Therefore, if you want to build this, send me an email. I will tell you where to purchase the plans if you can't find them on your own. I will not be responsible though for any aggravation you may suffer from them. Do not get angry with me if you have problems. I enjoyed it. If you do not enjoy problem solving, redesigning, and figuring things out on your own though, then these plans are not for you.

All that being said, please watch my video and leave a comment on You Tube if you like it.

 

 

As The Lathe Turns

The wood turning saga continues.

I have been working on a project. In the meantime though, my newly found wood turning fascination is still in full swing. What you see here is the corner of my shop over behind the table saws where the lathe always sat. I use the word sat, as in past tense, because you may notice there are three lathes now.

The one closest to the camera is the old one that I recently discovered had a bent shaft. I thought of carrying it out back and putting it out of it's misery, but I think it can still be of use.

I am going to use it if I need to rough out something that is extremely out of balance. This will safe from having to worry about tearing up either of the other ones.

Also I'm thinking, at the advice of an experienced wood turner I've been talking to, of setting up a polishing center for my turning projects that mounts between the centers on this lathe. The out of true condition the shaft presents will not effect a polishing set up.

Next, closest to the window, is the Ridgid lathe. It is actually very similar to the first lathe. Most of these pipe bed lathes made these days, besides some cosmetic and quality differences, are direct copies of an old Craftsman lathe I've seen from the eighties.

The Ridgid lathe was given to me by a good friend. I talked about it in my last post. It is a good lathe. The shaft is made of thicker material, which makes me a little more confident. The accessory controls, such as handles for tightening up the tool rest for example, are better made. I believe it is going to be a decent lathe.

The newest addition to the line up is the purpose of this post though. My lovely wife wanted to get me something nice for the upcoming Valentine's day, and this is what she got me. I have been wanting this lathe for some time and just have never been able to afford it. She has been putting in overtime at work and, while I don't think she will tell me that it was still hard on her to afford it, she used some of that extra cash to buy me the lathe I've been wanting.

This lathe is from Harbor Freight. I can almost hear the groans from my computer screen when I typed that. I know Harbor Freight sells some pretty cheaply made stuff. If you do your research though, you can find some diamonds in the rough at that place. I believe this to be just one of those precious gems.

For starters, I have read in numerous places that the lathe I have now is the exact same lathe as this one in the Jet lineup. The major differences between the two are the paint color, the supplied legs that are shipped with each of them, and the price. The color means nothing. I know for a fact that many items are made in the same factories, in the same assembly lines, and shot with different colors for different stores. I think most of us are aware of that. As for the legs, I don't know. From what I can see in the website photos, they look the same to me. It doesn't matter too much in my opinion though. For what I want, a machine that weighs as much as this one doesn't need heavier legs, and if it does eventually, I'll build a heavy stand for it.

So let us start with the weight of the machine. This thing, as listed on the box when I got it back to my shop, weighs in at 187.85 pounds. I couldn't even get it out of the box, much less set it up. While my wife and I usually handle most things ourselves, I had to call for backup just to get this thing on it's stand.

My only other complaint on this machine is the plastic used in some of the handles, such as the tool rest. That is usually expected in everything we buy these days though, and I am always good at working around these things by remaking them out of better material should anything ever go wrong with them. A fact of life these days is that products have too much plastic in them.

I also want to address other things about this lathe though. Through research of it, I came across items of concern to me, and I just generally want to show off my new toy.

$$$

Let's start with price. If you buy the Jet version of this lathe, you will pay considerably more than Harbor Freight. That is to be expected. When I went and looked at the difference though, I was shocked.

This lathe, on sale for $269.99 at Harbor Freight, was already in a reasonably price range for what it is. Then there are taxes added. However, we had a 25% off coupon. That brought the price down even considerably more. Then we added back a two year extended warranty to it. I have used Harbor Freight's warranties before and know for a fact that, if you pay for the warranty, they will take it back with no questions asked and give you a new one in the box. That brought the price back to about where it was. So for around $270, taxes included, we got the lathe and a two year extended warranty. I think that is a good deal.

Now, the Jet lathe. I went to the Rockler site to price it. It is available online only in my area. I did not check twenty sites for the cheapest one. I just wanted to give a general idea. Here, on the Rockler site, before any possible taxes or shipping, the lathe sells for $919.

Next up is the tool rest. I did not even notice this feature when looking at this lathe, but it is nice. Both my other lathes have a bar that slides along the bed, then the extension bar swivels and the tool rest swivels. That works, but it limited. This one has more movement to it. I am sure this may be standard for flat bed lathes and no big deal to most experienced turners. This is my first flat bed lathe though, and for me, it is a whole world better than what I am used to.

Some of you who have never turned probably have no idea why a tool rest would be so important to me to even mention it. Well, besides just being more versatile, in addition to the swiveling head on this lathe, you can see just above the orientation I can put a bowl while working on the inside of it. This is a huge advantage to me. In the past, on the pipe bed lathes I've used, I eight had to walk around the back of the lathe. This put me on the opposite side of the lathe from the controls. That is something that has always made me uncomfortable. The other option was to lean over the bed, and work back towards me, into the downward turning bowl. This was not just uncomfortable to me, but downright painful if I done it for more than a couple of minutes at a time. This lathe's features will eliminate these issues all together. Once roughed out, I can just turn the whole headstock around towards me, adjust the tools rest accordingly, and be able to work much more comfortable than I have ever been able to while turning bowls.

The single most complaint I have read in reviews of this lathe stemmed from this, the Reeve's variable speed system. I have read so many times, if you do not keep this oiled, it will fail, and the pulleys will literally fall apart in your hand. So I was a little apprehensive, when I pulled the cover off to oil it for the first time and to snap this photo, what horror I would find.

Let me start by saying I would love to have electronic variable speed. There may come a point in time that electronic variable speed is obtainable to the common man. Most people cannot afford that luxury though. So, just having the ten speeds that this Reeve's system affords me is a blessing. On this machine, I will not have to remove a cover and change belts on a set of pulleys every time I change speeds.

I have seen this system, and worked on this system, in many uses. It is very similar to the system on my old Total Shop. That motor now powered my shop made band saw and works flawlessly. The Total Shop was one of the cheaper made Shop Smith clones, and yes, it too was problematic if not oiled and maintained properly. Amazingly, I've also seen this system on variable speed PTO drives on tractors made decades ago.

Yes, the pulleys do seem to be made out of less than premium material. However, the look to be of the same material I see on 99% of stock pulleys on any brand these days. It's pot metal. No it is not the strongest material known to man, but it has always, from my experience, worked well for pulleys as long as it's taken care of.

The bottom line on this matter, to me, is this. This system involves moving parts that slide back and forth on a fixed shaft. Anything with moving parts, that move against unmoving parts, requires maintenance. If not, it will fail. That is a plain and simple truth no matter how you look at it. So, unless some other problem crops up in the future, this whole issue is a non-issue to me. For the torque the Reeve's system provide, in addition to the larger three quarter horse motor I have on this lathe compared to my others, I like this system.

 

So that's my new toy.

You will see many more turning projects in my future, and I'll keep you all posted if any problems arise with the new lathe. I look for it to work very nicely for me.

 

 

An Adventure In Wood Turning

If you seen the bowl in my last marble machine, I had a lot of fun turning that. I've messed around here and there with wood turning as I can, but my lathe has always been the least used tool in my shop. After doing that little bowl for that project, I have been determined to change that.

This is my old lathe. It has always done what I wanted it to do, but then again, I've never really done much with it.

So I started messing around and turned my wife a bowl made out of cedar. It turned out alright, but there were problems I noticed while turning this bowl that I couldn't quite figure out.

Next I put a pecan log into the lathe. It was all I could find around the shop to start another bowl with. The further I went with this little project, the more I noticed that something was definitely not right. I'm no expert wood turner, but I've never been able to get rid of the vibration in this lathe. Then, once I started trying to remove material inside this deeper bowl, everything just seemed to be working against me.

With the bowl removed, I started doing some careful checking of everything. There was a noticeable wobble to the four jaw chuck. While you could see it, it was only slight. By the time you moved outwards to the end of a deeper bowl though, it was more than noticeable, it was getting on the verge of downright dangerous.

I am not trying to overstate it. In my opinion, anytime you have something consistently out of balance and spinning at high speed, that cannot be a good thing.

So, I tore the lathe down to find the problem. I figured it was probably some bearing issues. If so, I knew I could measure and order some bearings and fix the lathe with ease. As it turned out though, the bearings were fine. The main shaft that the spindle uses was bent.

I bought this lathe second hand. I have no idea what brand it is. Most of the writing on it is in Chinese. So I had no idea how to find parts for it. Besides, considering it is a cheaply made lathe from China with a bent shaft, I'm not sure I would have ever felt comfortable using it again anyway. I've already had a piece of wood fly off this thing and hit me in the head. It is not a lot of fun.

So I talked with some good friends in one of my wood working forums about it. A fellow woodworker, and friend, happened to have a lathe that he said I could have. All I had to do was go get it. It was a longer drive to his house than I usually enjoy making, but seeing as I'd wanted to meet this guy besides just on the internet anyway, I decided that meeting a fellow woodworker, and getting a lathe, was just more than I could pass up.

So now, thanks to my friend Eddie, I have a Ridgid lathe. After getting it set up in my shop, I don't know how I ever done anything on that Chinese made one I'd been using. This thing is a dream to use. It runs true. It runs smooth. I can't believe the difference a god lathe makes.

So, with a good lathe to use now, and some other helpful advice from another friend that is a wood turner, on sharpening, I was back in business. I was standing ankle deep in wood shavings and chips in no time.

My first turning on my new (to me) lathe will be going to another woodworking friend. I promised to send him something I turned. That is what kept this whole adventure going past the first day anyway, a promise I made to a friend.

 

Next I hope to get on a project I was planning on starting a week ago, before I got sidetracked with this little wood turning adventure. This has been so much fun though. You all can surely look to see more wood turning in the future. I need more practice, but I really want to get good enough to turn a lot more bowls.

Marble Machine 2.1

I have built another marble machine. This one was designed by Matthias Wandel. You can view his site here. He has some amazing plans available if you are a wood worker. You may remember his name if you seen the shop made sixteen inch band saw I built last year. He also designed it.

The one I built this time is called the Marble Machine 2.1. The designer calls this one 2.1 because the plans he has available are based on his second marble machine design. However, he had to change a few things to make the plans easier to do. So he added the .1 part.

Here's some photos.

It was a ton of fun to build, and it is fun to play with. As a matter of fact, since completing it, I have yet to find one person who is able to walk past it without turning the crank on it.

I used a lot of those scraps I refuse to throw away on the small parts of this one. By the time it was done, this project has a lot of different woods on it. Plywood, oak, pecan, sapelle, cottonwood, pine, walnut, cedar, and I am not even sure I named them all. It is all finished with two coats of Watco Danish Oil.

As with the last marble machine, it is hard to tell the whole story without a video. So here it is.

I hope you enjoy it. I hope some wood workers are inspired to try a marble machine yourself. They are time consuming, but not difficult. I highly suggest this one if you really want to do one. Mr. Wandel's plans are reasonably priced, and well laid out. With just basic wood working knowledge, I think anyone could follow his plans and build this machine.



My First Marble Machine

I have wanted to do a marble machine for as long as I could remember. I finally got the opportunity, and let me tell you, it has been a fun project. As a matter of fact, I've already ordered the plans for two more different marble machines. One day, after learning more from these built from plans, I hope to design and build one unique to me.

For my first marble machine, it is one called a Marble Chest. The plans come from Forest Street Designs and can be purchased here

It is called a chest for obvious reasons. When closed, it resembles a chest. It can be picked up and carried off just like a chest.

 

One of the most interesting parts of this to me is rarely seen by anyone else, because they don't notice it. This is the view from down low with the lid closed. Notice how tightly everything fits where the lid comes down and meets the body of the chest. This was one of the most difficult aspect of this particular machine, getting everything working, while still being able to fold down into itself.

When the lid is opened, you are ready to play.

On the underside of the lid is an entrapment mechanism that releases one marble at a time. It is ingenious how this was designs. When one marble falls onto the second chute, the weight of it brings it down. This raises the lever sticking up on the left side, allowing one marble to enter between the two levers. When the marble drops off that chute, the couterweighted chute raises back up, and raises the lever on the right, releasing that marble to go down and fall into the second chute, starting the process all over again.

After leaving the entrapment mechanism, the marbles go through four different vertical diverting switches, and one horizontal diverting switch. This separates the marbles to go into the different contraptions.

Towards the end of this post will be a video. It is broken up to show the different contraptions instead of showing it all at once. The reason for that is that it is difficult to show everything on a video. There is just so much going on at one time when you release a bunch of marbles one after the other.

Inside the chest though, there is a clacker run that empties into a wheel and spiral, a seal drop that has to be seen, a xylophone, a parking ramp, a curvy design that is called Lombardy Street, and a spring board that launches marbles through a hoop held by a seal and into an enclosure where it hits some bells.

As I said, a lot goes on at one time.

So, I guess the best way to do this is just to show you the rest of the photos, which are showing what it looks like on all sides, and then the video.

And for the video, I want to apologize. I do woodwork a lot better than I take pictures and shoot video. I done the best I could to show the machine though. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 



A Special Request Frame

One of my sons recently got married. He and his new bride wanted their license and the garter frame in a nice frame. A good friend of theirs done the matting. He asked me to build them a nice frame though.

I have built many frames. I tried coming up with something extra nice though for my son. I have seen splines on the outside edges of frames before for strength and started to go for that. While laying everything out though, I thought of moving the splines to the front face instead and using a contrasting wood for a dramatic look. After gluing those in and sanding them smooth, they looked so good I wanted to add more. Then I had an idea to add the two other splines in opposite corner, actually crossing over the glass. I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out, but I knew if it didn't look good I would have some real nice firewood. After seeing it though, I don't think this will be the last time I use this technique. I really like it. As a matter of fact, my wife has already said she wants some frame just like it.

I do want to discuss this "original" idea I had with this frame. I cannot remember ever seeing this exact style before. I am sure it has been done though. I've probably seen it and just don't remember it. I have several times came up with something that seemed original, only to remember later where I'd seen the idea before. People have been working wood for thousands of years. It is rare for any of us to really come up with something that has never been done before. Usually, my original ideas are something I have seen in the past, or some combination of different things I've seen thrown together into one project. It is satisfying though to come up with something on a project that you haven't done before. It gives you a sense of accomplishment.

"The Coast" Wall Hanging

Some time ago, I built a coffee table for my Mom. The top of that table had a three dimensional coast scene that is built up in layers. My wife loved that top. The problem is, having multiple sons, coffee tables at my house usually wind up either destroyed, or the instrument with which one of them gets hurt. So we do not keep a coffee table in our living room. Instead, I decided to make my wife a wall hanging using the pattern for the coffee table top.

If you'd like to see the coffee table, you can see it here. If you'd like to order the pattern I used for the coffee table, and this project, you can order it here.

To make the scene, it is built up in five layers. The first layer is the backer board. I just used Minwax water based stain that is tinted blue on a three quarter inch thick piece of cottonwood that measures twenty inches tall and forty inches long.

The second layer consist of oak for the rocky cliffs, pine for the sun and the sun's reflection off the water, sycamore for the other water waves, box elder for the clouds, and cottonwood stained pearl grey for the lighthouse.

The third layer is cottonwood for the birds, cottonwood stained green tea for the tree, cottonwood stained china red for the sailboat, and oak for the rest of the cliffs.

The fourth layer is sapelle for the posts, and cottonwood for the bird's bodies.

The fifth layer is the ropes around the posts, which is made of cottonwood.

This photo shows the frame. I was going for a shadowbox look. So I used two inch wide finger jointed oak. That is overlaid with one inch thick mahogany.

The portrait part of the project is finished with a single application of Minwax Gloss polyurethane. Then the frame got two coats of the same polyurethane and two coats of Johnson's Paste Wax.

The most nerve racking part of this project, for me, was getting the piece of plate glass that large home, and into the frame without disaster. I just do not have good luck with large sheets of glass. Luckily, I did not have issues with this one. Keep your fingers crossed though. I still have not hung it for my wife. So there's still a chance for disaster.



Boat Shelves

I've done these before, but my wife wanted a set, done in purple.

They are not hard to make at all with the plans. You can get the plans for all four of them here.

It is a four piece set of boat shaped bookshelves. I painted the hull of these boats purple. The smallest one is curio shelf that hangs on the wall. 

The Bell Tower Clock

 

This one is called the Bell Tower Clock. It is from the Berry Basket Collection. I apologize. I normally provide a link to where I purchase plans from on any project. The Berry Basket site seems to be down for the last couple of days though.
I built this one with cottonwood and a sapelle overlay. It was meant to be sapelle with just a cottonwood backer on all the fretwork. For some reason though, during the building process, I decided to go with cottonwood floor material on each level, and for the roof. It seemed to me to break it up into a two colored project and makes it look more lively.
It took me about a week to build it. It stands nineteen inches high, is twenty three inches wide, and eight inches deep. It does not have a finish. I sometimes decide to leave certain projects unfinished for personal reasons. For this one, I feel a finish will not look right on it on close inspection because it’s going to be near impossible to get it even in some of the crevices that you’d have to dive off into. Also, my wife, who is getting this clock for Christmas, has informed me that NO, I cannot have the Victorian Queen Clock back to put finish on. She likes it as is. Since this clock will be displayed on the mantle right next to that one, I think I’d better leave this one alone as well. I asked her about this idea, and she says she does not want a finish on this one either. She likes the plain wood look without a shine of a finish. If she’s happy, I’m happy.

I enjoyed building this one, as usual. I do love building clocks. This is the first clock pattern I’ve had in a long while though that I was not happy with. The bottom level, with the angles on it, does not look pleasing to me at all. My wife likes it, but she doesn’t understand my distaste for it. The pattern looks nice, but was impossible to cut as well as the pattern shows. Even with a #2/0 blade, the smallest I have ever used, the nose and mouth details could not be cut. There is just no way. So the facial details that look so nice in the pattern, do not come out as nice on the wood. Because of this, I would rate this pattern lower than most of the other clock patterns I have cut from.
You can look at the last photo to see a close up of the front panel of the area I’m talking about.