The Lathe

I try my best to come up with catchy little titles for my blog posts. Sometimes though, I just can't think of anything that does not sound over the top corny. So I decided to title this one simply, the lathe.

As such, let's talk about my lathe. Recently I realized that I was extremely unhappy with the height of my lathe. I was turning a small bowl that I needed to see inside of for those final light passes when it occurred to me, this is why my back is giving me problems after turning small bowls. I was stooping at an uncomfortable position to be able to see inside my work. This made me also think of other operations that made me have to stoop. It was clear that either my lathe had to come up, or I had to get shorter. Since I had no intention of cutting my legs.....

I built an eight and a half inch riser frame under the lathe stand and bolted the stand to the frame using half inch lag bolts. I added strips across the bottom and had my sons move these huge pieces of marble under it that we brought back from my Grandpa's place in north Georgia earlier this year. This added a lot of stability. I checked it and was much happier with this height. The lathe bed is even with my elbows. I can work comfortably without stopping or reaching up in any uncomfortable positions.

While I was at it, I decided to make a couple of other modifications.

The middle supports for my lathe stand were just there. I mean, they really served no purpose besides keeping the legs from buckling, which I didn't see happening anyway. So I thought I should make use of that space. So I added a shelf with sides and ends that extend up two and a half inches. This gives me somewhere to put small tools I'm using while turning any given project. This is much better than my previous method, which was to lay it on the lathe bed and forget about it until I hear it hit the floor. Then I would usually have to get down into the floor and retrieve whatever it was that I had just lost in a nearby pile of shavings.

This took care of things except for one more aggravation I'd been having. A lot of projects usually require the use of more than one cutting tool. I would turn around to my accessory table, replace whatever tool I was using, and retrieve the one I needed. Then later I would usually go back for the first tool. This happened back and forth quite often. It would be nice to keep whatever few tools I used for any given project right on the lathe stand. So you may notice the angles wooden pieces at each end of my lathe now. Each of these has four holes one inch in diameter in them to drop tools I am using into. The one on the left end of the front are for most spindle type projects. The one on the other end I use when I sometimes stand at the back of the lathe while hollowing small bowls. I know some of you may tell me it's wrong to work at the back of my lathe, but it's what is comfortable to me. The are placed so I am grabbing for the left end on either side I'm working on because I am left handed.  

 

Now let's talk about those tools.

Someone told me once that the lathe was the cheapest part of wood turning. I did not, at the time, understand what they meant by that. They were correct though. To me, a three hundred dollar investment in a lathe is a huge deal. I just don't have that kind of money lying around. I have all these other tools though. They cost fifteen dollars here, twenty dollars there, and then you throw in those forty and fifty dollar accessories. Don't even get me to talking about some of the more expensive things. Let's just put it like this. I sat down one day and started figuring up what I had invested in accessories, not counting the lathe, and I swear I felt a heart attack coming on, or at least quite a bit of anxiety if I dared let my wife see those figures.

 

Anyway, I am always looking for ways to save on tools. The problem is, with a lot of lathe tools, you get what you pay for. Cheap tools are just that, cheap tools. Sure, you may get the job done, but be prepared to spend a lot of time at the grinder touching up the cutting edge. Yes, I learned this one the hard way. So I have found that the only other alternative is to make your own tools as much as possible.

With all this rambling, let me explain. I have several nice scrapers and gouges. The problem is that I often find myself in a position where I would love to have a different cutting profile on the tool I have in my hand. However, because of the cost, I just cannot start grinding a different profile on a tool each time I find myself in this predicament.

Then I read this article about the Oland Tool. This little dandy seemed like the answer to my prayers. So I started to look around to see what I had to work with.

Now, to make this tools, you can get pretty much any steel, drill a hole into the end of it, drill and tap for set screws, and stick a piece of tool steel in it. Really the only parameter you have to make sure on is that the holder part is big enough to hold the cutting part. So what would I use for the cutting part?

Then I remembered this tool. I ordered this from Penn State some time ago. I used it several times, hated it, stuck it in my tool rack, and it has collected dust and cobwebs there ever since. This tool is meant to hold quarter inch shank router bits and you use them on the lathe. I think it was a good idea in theory, but just doesn't work well, in my opinion, in practice.

Anyway, all I needed was some good steel to make cutting bits out of that would fit into the quarter inch hole in the end of this tool. So off to town I went. You know what I found? It is hard to find a clear answer in town what exactly good tool steel is, much less actually find any. So in frustration, I found myself at Tractor Supply Company just in hopes of finding something that would work, since they seem to have everything else. Then the brain fart hit me and I thought of drill bits. On the shelf, for less than six bucks a bit, was some very long shank, quarter inch, high speed tool steel, drill bits. I wondered if this would work. There was only one way to find out. So I bought the two bits they had left.

After grinding and cutting, I can get four bits off of each long shank drill bit. So after taxes, for less than fifteen bucks, I made eight different profiled bits to use in the bar of the tool.

Some of you are already asking the important question. How well does it work?

Normally, I would use more than just the oland tool. For example, most of my hollowing would be done with a bowl gouge. However, for testing purposes, I decided to turn this rosewood bowl entirely with the oland tool, using nothing more but different tip profiles. I am happy to say that I am absolutely thrilled with how it performs and would even venture as to say to it is my new favorite tool simply for it's versatility. I've already thought of some other tip profiles I'd like to have once Tractor Supply stocks some more of those quarter inch bits.

 

Something I love more than turning wood is fishing. Well I went fishing a few nights ago. Since I've been down in my back a lot lately, I let one of my younger sons do something I would never normally allow, carry my tackle box. He hit is on the steps leading down to the water and the flimsy factory handle came right off, with a broken plastic tab that used to hold it on. So I spent some time online looking for a tackle box and could not find one I was happy with. Then finally, at a local sports store, I found one I like a lot. The funny thing is, it was the exact box I have now that has a broken handle. What can I say? I got used to it and just really like the box. The problem is, there is no way I was going to pay over fifty dollars for the same box I already have, that has already proven to have a weak handle support on it. It just did not make sense to me.

So I decided the better alternative to this dilemma would be to fix the box I had. I wanted something better than what came from the factory though. I wanted something that would not tear off just because one of my sons hit it on a concrete step.

So I turned a handle from a solid piece of pecan. I ran strong enough rope through the handle and attached it to the bottom section of the box. In my opinion, this is better anyway because it also take undue stress off of the plastic latches that holds the lid shut, which I was sure by this point would be the next part of the box to fail otherwise.

Here you can see how the handle holds the box up while being carried. Not only do I think this will outlast the factory handle on a new box, in my opinion it is now more comfortable to carry. The handle having the ability to slip on the rope from side to side allows the weight to shift comfortably without the box hitting against your leg as you walk like it used to.

 

That's all I have to show today. Looking at things I've fixed using the lathe though, I guess I should have named this post, if it's broke, fix it.

Till next time, happy turnings.

 

The Dark Horse

This is the rocking horse chair. I have built several of these in the past. I was looking at one of my other past projects though and realized that I had only done this project in light colored wood. I thought it would look nice in a darker color. So I stained it with Minwax dark walnut stain.

This one is a really simple project for anyone who wishes to make one. The plans for it can be found here. I can make one, without the finish, in a day. Even for the novice woodworker though, I honestly believe it would only be a weekend project at the most.

The plans have all the parts drawn out in full size patterns. All you do is trace them using carbon paper, or attach straight to the wood if you only plan on making one, and cut the few parts out then assemble it. There are as many ways to attach wood together as there are names you can come up with for your horse. For this type of project though, I like to use Titebond II glue and screws. I countersink the screws, plug the holes, and sand the plugs off flush.



Shooting Straight

 

I must give you all fair warning. I have gotten way behind on posting my blog as of late. Settle in, grab a cup of coffee, or beverage of your choice, and hang on. This one will be a long one.

 

 

The thing that has kept me from posting, besides personal problems, is that I have gotten into some pens that have really peaked my interest. I had a birthday last month. My wife asked what I wanted and I told her I'd really like to order some kind of pen kits besides slimlines that I have been turning. So she gave me some money to order what I wanted and I ordered some teacher's pens, and a five piece starter set of bullet pens.

There is so much to show, that I guess I'll just go in order and shoot straight through it, thus the name of this blog entry.

I done one of the teacher's pens first. I made a Celtic knot in the middle piece, which is made of maple. Then I used purple heart and ziricote for the end pieces. This pen is designed for teachers or accountants because it uses the two inks that those professions use most. The end of the pen with the ziricote turns to expose a black ink tip, while the purple heart end exposes a red ink tip.

Next, I desperately wanted to get into those bullet pens. However, the starter set came with several pieces of camouflage acrylic blanks. I had never worked with acrylic before, and really wanted to practice on it before I started on the higher priced bullet pen kits. Well, one of the acrylic blanks was this crushed camo. Personally, I thought it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Someone else might like it though, so it was a perfect candidate to use with a slimline kit to get some practice on.

Then I couldn't wait any longer. I just had to do a bullet pen. I decided to do one of the .30 caliber click pens first, since it would also be my first click pen. This one is chrome with urban camo acrylic.

After turning two pens with it, I felt I was ready to give my opinion of turning acrylic. It is alright. I much more prefer wood though. If someone wants acrylic, or I happen to get some, I'll be happy to turn it. I highly doubt I'll be going out of my way to acquire more though.

This next pen was just a fun pen to do. It is the .50 caliber pen made with desert camo acrylic. It is meant to be a stand alone desk accessory. I did however go back later and make a box for it so it would make a good gift for someone.

To really give you an idea of the massive size of this pen, here it is next to a slimline pen. It also shows why I had to make a different box for it.

I have so many photos to show that I am not necessarily showing the boxes I made in this post. I had to make special boxes for several other pens. If any of my readers are actually interested in them though, please let me know and I'll post more about the boxes.

Now, I am going to show the box for this pen in just a bit. This pen is special to me for several reasons. For starters, I think it is my new favorite. I absolutely love this pen. It is the civil war pen. Another thing is, my hometown, and where I now reside, is steeped in civil war history. Also not to be missed, I fell in love with the box elder burl that came with this starter set before I even turned it, and loved it more after it was turned, sanded, and buffed to a high gloss shine.

Here is a better close up of the pen. It is chrome with box elder burl.

I made more of a collector style box for it out of sapelle. I chose this design because it is more of a collector item than most of the pens I have turned. Also, the paper that goes with the pen would not fit in the boxes I've been making.

Here is the inside of the box, and the paper I am talking about. The paper has a stylish front which tells who turned it and what kind of wood is used on it.

Inside that paper is information about the different parts of the pen and why they were chose for the hardware on a civil war pen. The clip is the replica of an 1861 Springfield musket. The cap is a .58 caliber "Minnie" ball, and the tip is the replica of a .44 caliber 1860 Colt Army revolver bullet.

For the .30 caliber twist pen, I decided that since I love burl so much, I would try some of the live oak burl on it.

By this time, the idea had struck me to combine two things that are very popular in the area where I live, bullets (or guns) and white tail deer. So I done the last pen, the gold click pen, in white tail deer antler.

With all these ideas floating around in my head, I somehow came out of the starter set with one piece of untouched acrylic. So I decided to do the woodland camo blank for another slimline pen.

Then, through all this, one of my older sons had seen each pen with great interest. He loves guns and hunting. He recently bought a .45-70 and was bugging me to death about making him a pen out of a .45-70 cartridge. I kept telling him they don't make kits for that and carried on. Then, as I was nearing completion of all of the kit pens, I thought one evening about how much I've done in the past without proper kits. So I knew there had to be a way.

I took what was left of the urban camo blank. I cut one end off to length for a slimline tube. The other end I glued what was left to one end of a slimline tube. Next, I used calipers to carefully measure and turn a shoulder to fit snugly inside the .45-70 cartridge. Then, resetting the calipers, again carefully turned the rest of the pen to be exactly the same diameter as the outside of the cartridge. From there, I just turned the tip end to shape of a regular pen and used gold slimline parts to make a pen. The shoulder I turned before got glued inside the .45-70 cartridge.

These are unrelated, but both the pink slimline pen and the zebra wood with cross grain slimline pen have left my shop. Since both of these pens seem to be very popular, I felt I needed to replace them.

While doing the pink pen though, which is actually pink dyed maple, I had another idea. I also had a piece of black dyed maple. These two together made perfect ends for a teacher's pen. For the middle I used a piece of cocabolo that has really interested me since I first laid eyes on it. It had sap wood in it, which is something I had never seen before.

While doing that teachers pen, I had yet another idea. You may remember how much I love burl. I had just enough box elder burl from the start set to go with some cherry burl and live oak burl, and make a teachers pen with three different types of burl on it.

I had just enough left of that cocabolo with the sapwood to do one more thing with. I wanted to make something special for my Dad.

My Dad, if some of you remember, is part of S.A.S.S. They shoot old west era guns. One of the guns he shoot is a .45 Colt. It is the same ones I made gun blocks for some time back.

Well I knew if I could make a pen with a .45-70, then I should be able to do the same with a .45 Colt. So, using the same method as for the pen previously described, I made my Dad a cocabolo pen with a .45 Colt cap.

 

Well, if you haven't left yet or fell asleep, that is what I have been able to get done in the last couple of weeks. I have been down a bit in my health, but hope to get back in the shop soon. Also, I hope I am able to order more bullet pen kits soon. I really enjoy them and have all kinds of idea for them. In the meantime, I still have seven more teachers pen kits to come up with ideas for.



Trains And More Trains

Any of you who regularly read my ramblings have seen and heard all about these Rocking Iron Horse trains before. You've also may probably remember my fascination of trains in general. For several weeks though, the train building have went off the rails (lame joke fully intended).

The one you see in these photos is the one I built first, which was completed a couple of weeks ago. Well, the guy who it was for liked it. He liked it a lot. He must have, because.........

He wanted two more.

All three trains are built entirely of cotton wood except for the train frames. The frames are made of sapelle because I did not have any other material thick enough when building them and did not want to run all the way to town for material when I had these sticks under a table that would work just fine.

 The different colors are obtained with different stains. The red and blue is tinted, waterbased Minwax stain. After they are assembled, they are finished off with Polycrylic, a water based clear coat.

 

Lantern Boxes

Sitting on top of this wooden box is the plastic holders that I've had for some time to hold my Coleman lanterns in. I have always hated them. They are flimsy, cheaply made, and have on at least one occasion come loose from the bottom and broken the globe on one of my lanterns. I just never have taken the time to build something better.

Well, after going fishing a few weeks ago, and the latch mechanism completely failing on one of them and me almost breaking another globe, I was not putting it off any longer.

Here is a view of the top with it open. The lantern sitting on top is the newest lantern I have. My wife and kids bought me that one for Father's Day several years ago. Most of my lanterns are old ones. I prefer the old ones because they can be rebuilt. The new style, the ones that run on propane, are pretty much junk if they ever act up. On these old style ones, you can replace the globe, pumps, generators, and I also have a few extra lanterns around for the odd parts that you cannot buy in the stores, like lids and such.

I have several old lanterns that were made over thirty years ago. I pick them up at yard sales for a dollar or two a piece. Usually, you disassemble them, clean the dirt dobbers out of them, reassembly, put new mantles on them, and fire them up.

This is my small box. It holds three lanterns. I carry these three, my favorite ones, when I go night fishing. They are my go-to lanterns. The fourth compartment accessories like extra mantles, a lighter, funnel for adding fluid, and an extra pump (just in case).

Here is the small box with the lid shut. I added a hasp and pin clip just to make sure it stays closed until I am ready to open it.

Next I built a long box. This one holds the lanterns we carry when the whole family goes camping. These don't see much use, but I wanted a safe storage place for them as well. Since these only get used when we go as a family, I made one long box that holds them all. The lid opens in three sections so you can pull out just a couple at a time. The ends have hollowed out handles so one person can get at each end and carry the box.

The long box holds seven lanterns. When we camp, we'll load this box and the small one. This makes ten lanterns. Since I think that's enough to light up a small Army camp, I believe it'll be enough.

These boxes were made from cottonwood, using hardware that I've saved off of old junk (I'm a pack rat), and plywood lids. They aren't pretty, but that is the point of why I built them as I done. Every piece of wood in these projects is wood that I would have normally cut up for fire wood. So I wasted no good wood to make them. That makes them even better for the purpose they serve in my opinion. I do want to go back at a later date and add some kind of exterior wood protection on them.

Newest Antler Pen

I've done several antler pens in the past. However, I have not been completely happy with any of them. They are antler, but they have been from very small tines, and I've had to make odd shape pens to be able to include any of the outer "bark" to make them even resemble antler.

Recently though, I was given a pretty large rack and couldn't wait to see what I could do with this one.

I was able to get a solid piece off of this one to be able to make the whole pen from one continuous piece. This makes it easier to match the two pen halves in appearances.

This allowed me to leave much more of the bark than I have on past antler pens, and be able to stick with the pen shape that I also like. It is a little fatter than my other pens, but I am just happy with the overall results.

On the other side of the pen, I guess because of the large size, it did become a little soft on me while turning. I had to keep soaking it in CA glue as I went, and this left a yellowish look where the soft area was, but I like this look as well.

So overall, this is my favorite antler pen so far.

Still Learning

I mentioned some time back that I was going to try to get into segmented turnings. I have been reading and getting advice everywhere and anywhere I could on the subject, along with doing a lot of reading. I felt I was ready to start a simple bowl to see how it would go.

Things got off to a rocky start right from the beginning. While trying to make an eight piece segmented ring, I happen to discover that my Incra sled was one half a degree off from square. This had never presented itself as a problem to me before now and therefore went undetected. However, when you consider a half degree per side of each joint piece, times eight pieces, this made for an eight degree gap overall in the ring. Now, a half a degree is tiny, but eight degrees, well, let's just say that glue is not going to cover that gap.

Anyway, after fiddling with the sled for a couple of days, I was finally able to get it to where it was accurate enough for the segments. The Incra sled is a great piece of equipment, but I have found out that if it ever gets a tiny bit out of square, is is a pain in the rearend to get it perfect again.

The bowl press I made a while back made the glueing up of the stacks of rings much easier.

I allowed this to set up overnight and was ready for the turning to begin.

The biggest difference I found with doing the segmenting over simply turning a bowl from solid wood is that there is nothing in the middle on one end to keep everything securely on the lathe until you get everything balanced well enough to spin safely.

You may also notice I glued a piece on the bottom for no other reason that to have something to attach to the chuck without having to get into the material of the bowl itself. This I planned on turning off later.

Here is the bowl. Well, here is what is left of the bowl.

Everything went fine until I started turning the inside. I had nothing but problems, catches, and disappointment when I tried doing the inside. My tools were sharp, but I ran into other issues. The biggest of them being I need a better technique for getting into these smaller diameter bowls. When I work off the end of my tool rest, I'm kind of out there in no man's land because there is not enough room for my rest, my tool, and my hand to steady the tool. There has got to be a better way to do what I'm trying to do. I just need to do some more research and watch some more videos to figure it out. As usual though, it's always a learning process and I will get it one day.

The bowl isn't a complete waste. Since all my past "reject" bowls that I put next to my bench to hold small tools always seem to get snatched up by family members, I needed a new small tool catch-all anyway.