Feb 02 2013

Well another week is gone by and a little more work has been done. The first thing I decided to do was make a pair of collet tray carousels. The new lathe needed one and I had some nice left over 1/4sawn white oak available. Well since I'm making one not much more work to make two and I know that there are a few owners out there who do not have one so maybe somebody would like the extra one. The first thing I did was joint and plane some blanks, once they were at the desired thickness finger jointed them and glued them up.

Here are some pictures showing the jointed boards and then the glued up blanks. Once they had dried up sanded them all down and then drew out a Fibonacci spiral along which would be bored 5/8" holes to accept the dowels that support the collets. Read up on the spiral and figured out that a 1/2"dia drill bit would be the perfect centre point to draw the spiral with. Gathered up some string wrapped it carefully around the drill bit leaving 3" out with a small loop that the pencil went into. Then with pencil in the loop carefully started drawing the spiral. As the string unwrapped the length got longer thus giving me a spiral trace on the would. The blanks were 18"dia so when the spiral reached the end I stopped. Then using a compass with 1-5/8" between point and pencil lead proceeded to mark out where the dowels would be placed. Once I had 68 points I stopped. This would be enough for 64 collets in 1/64th spacing and 4 holes for other things to store eg: live centre. Then went to the local Lowes to pick up some 7/8" dowel which was the size of the dowels on my other lathe. Was initially going to get Oak however being a bit of cheap skate went with Poplar instead since I could get 4ft for 3.50 as opposed to 3ft for 4.75. Carefully cut of 135 2.5" pieces and then started using the Boley metal lathe I have to turn down one end to 5/8" dia by 1/2" long to fit into the bored hole. I'll include a couple of pictures showing the Dowels in the lathe and a couple of them in the carousel blank.

 

Now I only have another 100 to turn down. This might take awhile. Once that is done we'll carefully glue them in and then stain the wood a nice dark colour and give it a few coats of Shellac. Then I'll need to install two steel plates in the centre to strengthen the 1.25" hole that is there for the carousel hangar nut to go. Well see you next week with an other installment

 

Harold