Homebuilt Wood Lathe

 Well, not quite.

This winter I've gotten into machining and shop stuff. Metal lathe. Milling machine. Improvements to many shop tools. Learned to weld (I bought the machine several years ago but didn't get enough practice to get good at anything other than straight passes on 1/4-inch plate required for certain oil tank floor repairs).  Originally I was thinking about sailboat modifications/inventions/repairs, but the shop has taken on a life of its own.  

I rebuilt the wood lathe I was given in middle school. I was a piece of junk from the back of a 1974 Popular Mechanics (cheap American junk, don't blame the Chinese). Satisfied with it's performance, this winter I replaced the tool rests (made several new shapes and sizes), tool rest banjo (many times more rigid), tail stock quill (snapped--increased the quill size, improved the adjustment, and increased the center diameter from 3/8-inch to 1-inch), ways (lengthened to turn 55-inch spindles), built a steady rest (very rigid--based on in-line skate wheels), and most recently, built new ball bearing headstock (far more rigid, 20 times less runout, and much smoother), all in the quest for improved precision and rigidity.  All that remains of the original lathe is the tailstock casting and the ways tail foot casting. over 90% replaced, virtually all with home built parts. None of the original moving parts; they either worked poorly or broke. Between welding, metal lathe, and milling, it seems I can make most things. And retired folk have time (I'm still working part time, barely).

So, the question is, if you replace the head of an ax when it chips, and then replace the handle when it breaks ... is it the same ax? I painted the lathe a new color, in recognition of this rebirth.

 

 

In fact, I've spent very little money on tool and shop upgrades. I bought a cheap Chinese metal lathe with good bones, then adjusted and upgraded that. It can now turn steel t good precision. I added milling set-ups to both the lathe and drill press (they excel at different operations). I bought a really cheap welding machine and tuned that. Between that and a trove of WWII machine tools I inherited from my great uncle, I can make most things. He was a machinist at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria and also family black sheep. I've learned more about him from the tools he used than from family conversation. I don't even know what he looked like, because his image was snipped out of picture albums, including pictures from the wedding of his daughter! After she was married, he went to the store and (figuratively) kept going.  Between me and my Dad, and our experiences with his wife, we know why. No one else talks about him: "We don't talk about Bruno ...".

 

The lathe gained so much weight I had to add a hoist to haul it off the bench into storage. Fortunately, any good sailor has a lot of old pulleys and much rope lying about.

 

Many of my creation contain an odd collection of weldments and machined bits. Some examples ...

• I inherited may dies, in 4 diameters, but only one holder. So I made three more, including guides, mostly from pipe. Rings were cut, bent to diameter, and welded. They were then turned to precise dimensions and then welded together. Tabs were welded on and threaded for handles.  A machinist would turn the rings from solid stock, a fabricator works with what he has.
• Lathe drive spur for soft woods and spaulted logs.  Normally they are milled. Mine was fabricated almost entirely by welding, then hardened and tempered. 
• The center, quill, and shaft for the wood lathe were metal lathe projects. Nothing complicated, simpler than the cannon, really.
• The bandsaw table is used on a daily basis. A lot of steel needed cut, some of it quite precisely. The Porta-Band has power, but the table gives you control. The belt guard was a fun sheet metal project. I learned those skills in middle school. It was bent from an old gas furnace access door, using a 6-inch machinists vice and some angle iron as a break. One piece, with the screws tapped into the headstock. I welded up the miter; one less thing to rattle or shake. I hate stick welding really thin metal. It's so easy to burn-through and so hard to hold an arc at very low amps. Welding up the 3/16-inch plate for the headstock, and the 3-inch channel for the tool rest banjo,on the other hand, were relaxing.
• The radius turning attachment for the metal lathe (for odd-sized pulleys) required turning and milling (on the drill press) of steel. But the square hole for the lathe tool was filed out using WW II square machinists file. It didn't take long and the fit is snug (secure by a machine screw, of course).  

I need a new project. I'll we installing a new solar panel on the boat soon, along with a LiFePO4 battery soon. That might yield something interesting. 

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Update 5-15-2025. Building a deep hollowing rig for vases. A metal lathe and welding required.

 

 

Need a Vice?

 Clamp-on vices are never satisfactory. They slip and twist and the surface is scared. They are not strong enough. My solution is a drill press vice mounted to a sheet of plywood. The underside of the sheet has cleats which prevent the vice from twisting or sliding. It also provides a work surface you are unafraid of scaring.

 I had the vice (it normally lives on my drill press at home--oddly enough, to hold metal bits that that are being drilled), but it would only be ~ $40 at Home Depot or on Amazon. Multiple holes allow mounting at 90 degree orientations.

The bolts grab T-nuts, saving time. The sheet can be slipped into the locker for storage.

 Sometimes you can jam a part between dock boards or hold it with Vice-Grips, but sometimes you need both hands plus the firm grip that only a solidly mounted vice can provide.

Metal Lathe -- Concave Radius Turning Attachment

 Small radius curves, like the Wheel thimbles and small pulleys are turned using a form tool; a chisel ground to the desired profile. But with metals and small lathes this becomes impractical from a tool pressure perspective at about 0.10" to 0.25", depending on the metal, and about 0.50" for plastics. You can turn larger radius curves in a few other ways:

• Freehand, with a special chisel, like on a wood lathe. The chisels are small and it is very slow on metals. It is also difficult to make repeatable parts.
• Remove most of the material with standard tooling, then smooth it up with a large rat tail file. Tricky.

Or you can use a radius attachment. However, most are made for convex curves (which are much easier to free hand and/or make with conventional tooling), and those that will turn convex won't do deep curves, such as a low friction ring or wheel thimble. So I made my own. 

It covers 11/16-inch to 2-inch and up to 1-inch past the pivot deep. Enough for my needs. 

Somehow it reminds me of one of the robots on the old MST 3000.

It looks dead simple, but it must be very rigid, very compact, and quite precise, so it took a good many steps:

• Careful band saw work
• Milling a slot
• Facing and turning a rod down 
• Concentric boring
  
• Threading several times
• A square hole
• Indexed milling of the hex at the top 
• Fitting the bearing surfaces so that it turns smoothly but with no flex
• Parkerizing of some parts for rust prevention
• Grinding the custom chisel
  

It replaces the tool post and is rotated in use by a 6-point socket with a T-handle from above (see below). The chisel is symmetrical to cut both ways. It uses tiny 1/4-inch blank pieces.

 

I made the 1/2-inch drive Tee handle from #4 rebar with some welding and careful grinding. Why waste good rod? It fits perfectly and is used with other setups on the same lathe.

So Far I'm Down (if I had not moved out of stocks) About $450,000 Since Inugeration Day. Wow. That Stings.

 Yeah, I hate politics, but some things need said.

 A trained monkey could handled the economy better. Just hands off. Oh, and I think it's pretty funny that Trump says the last tariff deal with Canada was terrible ... when he was the one that signed it (CUSMA 2018--Google it). Of course, we should know by now he has no use for actual facts, even those he should remember. Did he forget, or was the truth simply not the message he wanted to sell?

 Weird. It makes me feel weird, trying to say a few bucks here and there, when it is evaporating at that rate. But controlling your burn rate never hurts. I spent the morning in the shop welding up some parts for a recycled anchor chain fence. It was relaxing. I'm trying to think of good uses for retired anchor chain for an article, but I don't think this counts. Maybe.

Thankfully, we bought two new cars (both Japanese) a few years ago, so we will have no need to check prices for at least 15 years. We don't drive that much these days. No commute is nice.

 ----

Do I think the tariffs will help in the long run? I think there are reasons not.

• Industry will NOT change production systems for a policy that will very likely change.
• Trump Is unpredictable. He considers it one of his strengths in negotiations, and for his style, I get what he believes. But big business needs predictability. 
• I've never believed in isolation as a cure for anything. Step up and fix the problem. Become competitive at something. Play to your strength.

The value of empire (the US has been leading a non-imperial empire sine WWII--we inherited it from the British) is free trade and worldwide security. We're blowing that. So much for a making America great. We are weakening it. I'm ashamed.

 ---

 Note that these were all conservative arguments. Apparently they are no longer Republican values. And that is really weird.

I've gone kind of shop-crazy this winter

  

Just a few of the projects:

Lathe-related

·         Shim or re-fit all lathe control handles. They were sloppy.

·         Cross slide lock (homemade). Required for facing. Or you can keep one hand on the main crank.

·         New cross slide hand wheel (homemade). The original was too small and did not have a bearing.

·         Tailstock lapped to ways. Bad alignment.

·         Center finding gauge (homemade).

·         Compact depth gauge (homemade).

·         Bump center (homemade). It’s a thing made from ball bearings to help align work in chuck.

·         Milling 90 degree plate (homemade) that bolts direct to compound.  Also hold-down bars and studs.

·         Milling 90 degree plate that fits vertical slide (below) (homemade).  Additional hold-down bars and studs. Toe clamps from 2-inch schd 40 pipe (homemade).

·         Marking/bolting 90 degree plate (homemade).

·         Vertical slide.

·         Vice for vertical slide.

·         Fitted milling vice. Handle needed re-machined. Mounting holes.

·         Keyway mod in lathe tailstock. Stock keyway was omitted at factory due to casting error.

·         Mods to drill press milling vice.

o   Handles and gibs.

o   Wider jaws with 6 screws and pressure plate (homemade).

·         Three machinist’s jacks (homemade), mostly for use with the drill press and lathe.

·         Built shallow drawer under work bench for mics etc.

·         Built drawer under lathe (right side, for lathe accessories), with lift-out tray. More trays lower.

·         Built drawer under lathe (left side), for milling accessories) with lift-out tray. More trays lower.

·         Several other drawers to organize drills and boat fittings.

·         Organizer behind chip guard.

·         Ways cover (attached with aluminum strip embedded with rare earth magnets).

·         Shallow, removable chip tray under chuck-half.

·         Face plates (2). Fitted from older lathe.

·         Hand turning rest (wood or metal) for metal lathe (homemade).

·         Hand turning chisels for metal lathe (2) (homemade) .

·         Chuck spider (homemade) (accessory to chuck short stuff).

·         Parting tool holder using hacksaw blades (homemade). Very good for brass, not steel. Got 1.5 mm parting tool from Buyaholic.

·         Manual die holders (1.5- and 2-inch) (homemade). Not lathe mounted, but can start 1-, 1.5-, and 2-inch on lathe using chuck to keep it straight. Removable handles.

·         Die pusher with aligning fit (homemade).

·         Tap follower. From great uncle.

·         Die grinder tool rest mount (homemade). Includes short hose extension and air control valve.

·         Drip coolant at tool post. Mounts with magnet. Probably over kill. (Also a bad idea—can’t see what you are doing, mess in mechanism, corrosion. Better with a spray bottle or squeeze bottle.)

·         Indexing for lathe head (homemade) (24 increments). Great for making hex and square heads.

·         Precision filing guide (homemade). Can be used for end stop or depth control.

·         Larger dog for turning between centers (homemade). (I still have my old 1975 small home-made dog!)

·         Assorted custom handles for hex sockets and square drives (homemade) (chuck and tool rest).

·         Radius turning attachment. 0.625” to 1.5” (homemade). For wide pulleys, such as trailer rollers, genoa leads, and low friction rings. A precision job, requiring milling, turning, threading, and indexed grinding. But not much bigger than my thumb.

Other projects (all homemade using lathe, welder, band saw, drill press, etc.)

·         Bending lever, large stock. Up to ½-inch rebar.

·         Bending rod jig for vice, small stock. Bar stock and up to about 3/8-inch round … maybe.

·         Band saw table and stand. Fence from speed square. Sled from scrap.

·         Improved hold-down tee-nuts for drill press.

·         Tuned up cross slide vice for drill press. Now I can mill on the press, up to ½-inch steel plate with ½-inch end mill.

·         Centers (top and bottom) for drill press table. Good for accurate concentric drilling.

·         Wooden clamp to hold work from spinning.

·         Steel fence for drill press.

·         Drill press clamp (Keats Plate) for round stock center drilling.

·         Drum sander table.

·         Tool handles. Lots, mostly for files.

·         9-inch disk sander stand. 90 degree fence.

·         Cradle for angle grinder (just for spin-down). I’m going to upgrade this to 12-inch when I run out of 12-inch paper.

·         Scribe/awl from triangular file. Full length tang. Very hard.

·         Light bracket for drill press. Old eyes appreciate this.

·         Switched outlets to control air compressor and shop air filter.

·         HEPA-rated show air filter from 5 MERV 13 20x20 filters and a 20x20 box fan. Allows welding indoors. Every shop should have one. Also great for remodeling mess.

·         Soft jaws with magnets (both vices) . Aluminum and wood.

·         Parallels with magnets. Parallel edge clamps for non-magnetic parallels.

·         V-blocks. Many sizes. Wood, steel, and aluminum.

·         Table saw sled and mini-rip fence. More accurate and less dust.

·         Zero clearance insert for table saw. Less dust.

·         Two hole deburing tools; one from a counter sink and the other from a ½-drill with the clearance angle reduced (plus handles).

·         Edge deburing tool from a rusted triangular file plus a handle. My favorite.

·         Up-side-down holders for 5-minute and G-Flex epoxy.

·         Cradle for angle grinder (for spin-down).

·         90 degree and variable angle brace/clamp for welding

·         Mini-chipping hammer from rebar. My new favorite.

 

And I'm sure there were more. And I'm reaping the benefits, as I now have just the tool or jig I need to do things more quickly and with better precision. More practice helps too. 

The cost? Barely anything, since most were homemade. With welding, milling, and a lathe, you can make most things.

Trump is "Pissed Off" that Putin did not honor a cease fire.

 Well .... Obviously.

Trump is actually smarter than that. I think. I hope. So the question is, why does he say things, make statements, and take actions (birth right citizen ship comes to mind) that he knows are false and won't stand or work out? Sending a message to his constituency? But is it worth the collateral damamge, even from his perspective, given that he is already elected? Does he believe it will help in the mid-terms? Such actions puzzle me. I can only guess this is descended from a pattern of business and personal behavior that has worked for him through the years. Sad. The Presidency is different.

Or perhaps it is just that arrogance can be a real stupid-a-fier. It has been for me over the years.

Is The World Order Changing?

 Half the people voted for Trump. If you did, is this the world you foresaw?

• He wants to be King. They could have guessed that. They should have known he only cares about one man and one man's view. Obviously. But others share parts of the view. But do you share all of it, because you no longer have a say.
  
• He wants to add territory so that he can be remembered as a conquering hero. Of course, if you read history books, those empires didn't last and the conqueror was usually killed.  Alexander the Great is remembered as a destructive despot that left a mess for others to clean up, not as a good man that moved the world forward. Just sayin'.
• He believes that the super powers (US, Russia, and China) will and should divvy up the world.
• NATO will be irrelevant. Treaties will not be respected. He does not respect them.
• As the Northwest Passage becomes more important, Greenland and Canada become vulnerable to aggression. Russia will not respect NATO. Well, of course not, if the US withdraws. And then he will argue that Canada and Greenland can only be safe if they become part of the US, which Russia would not attack dirrectly. Twisted logic for certain. In fact, NATO with Europe and the US has more than twice the money to ward off assault than the US on it's own. We certainly do not have enough money to handle China and Russia. We need help. The west is stronger as one voice. The Ukraine has been a good wake up call for Europe, but Trump heard only the message he wanted to hear, the one that could make him king.
  

• And he believes, following the Russian model, that out economy would be better off on its own.  That's just stupid and will lower our standard of living. I suspect he believe the US oligarchs will be better off. Why else would Musk be there? Obviously? There cannot be another reason. It's not government efficiency, it's privatization. Anyone who thinks isolationism and tariffs solve competitiveness problems is hopelessly closed minded; if you feel your are falling behind, dig in and get going. Figure out where your strengths lie and play to that. One of our strengths, over Russia and China, has been trust. It's hard to accomplish anything great without trust. I guess we're blowing that. 

 

I hope we can earn back the trust, as a beacon of light and a country you can safely do business with. But that will likely take 50 years. No kidding. 50 years. We still look at Russia and Germany a certain way. 50 years at least.

Note that I have skipped human rights and climate change. That's important too. But you can see the hot mess we're creating without the home front issues.

I think the above is the product of a very short time view and a egocentric mind, but I also think that the dementia is catching. The exact opposite "making America great," he is weakening the country. Instead of the leader of the greatest non-imperial empire the world has ever seen, we will soon be isolated. The accomplishments of WWII, paid in blood, and the many leaders that followed, are being washed away by a flood of blind ego. Many great Republican presidents are weeping.

We can fix this, a least some of it, in the mid-terms.

Have a Portable Band Saw? Make a Table.

 I should have done this 20 years ago. 

I was surfing the net on a business trip and came across a super simple table for a portable band saw that I could make from a scrap under my porch. The scrap even had the bends I needed. To use it, you clamp the edge in a large machinists vice. Unfortunately, although many people manufacture these and variations, my saw was too old to be supported. DIY time.

 First, I made a very slightly larger rest for the band saw. I had realized that if I just clamp the band saw in the vice (soft jaws) a slightly larger rest would allow some delicate part trimming without mounting the table. That could be handy. Also, it would give me something to screw the larger table to. The screws holding the original rest came loose chronically, and I wanted to take this opportunity to lock them down tight and use red Locktite. I knew that using them repeatedly to mount a table would eventually result in stripping ( I could re-tap them larger, but it would be tricky to drill the hole without complete disassembly of the saw).

I then took a sheet of heavy cardboard and did a few quick mock-ups.  Simple. Clamp the band saw in the vice to do the trimming of the table. Four 1/4-20 flat heads tapped into the new rest hold it down. A cable tie holds the power "on" and a switched outlet with switch 30 inches away provides control. (Some prefer a foot switch, but a conventional shop band saw just has a switch--I like being able to adjust my balance and stand on two distracted feet.)

I used this table, clamped in the vice (rotate the vice 90 degrees) to cut four trapezoidal backing plates out of bronze for a fellow sailor. It was like cutting paper with scissors. Also perfect control; I could keep the blade on a penciled line, neatly erasing only the line.

So I made a stand. Too often you need the vice and the band saw alternately.  There are dozens of designs on the net, made from whatever scrap is on hand to fit the saw they have. The most common threads are a fork at the top to hold/grasp the top/forward handle, and a cradle for the back and bottom. Mine was welded from lightweight 2-inch angle and 3-inch channel, but there are no-weld designs out there. You could manage with an angle grinder and drill. Keep it simple.

 The band saw just drops into the stand, no clamps or bolts required. Just gravity and a good fit. It sits stably on the workbench, but if it is in the way it is easy to pick up and move. Portable enough to take to the boat. You could use it sitting on the ground (you would need some sort of remote switch, if just a power strip).

 If you have a portable band saw, make a table and stand, or buy one if available to fit. Really.

 

 

Finished

 The barrel and hardware were phosphate conversion (Parkerized) treated. This protects against rust and also provides a more authentic color without the gloppy thickness of paint. I like still being able to see the tool marks. Cannons were lumpy.

 The carriage was made from some 100-plus year old oak I had laying around. I made square nuts for the tie bards from hex nuts. The iron bands on the wheels are 3/4-inch conduit with the galvanized etched off and Parkerized.

In principle I could fit it with  the aiming and restraint ropes, load it, and fire something. It's bored through to the touch hole about 0.27 inches, if I recall correctly. The breach also opens, because I turned the knob as a separate piece and threaded it to the main bore. The elevation wedge is functional.

 

 I wanted some lathe practice. I think I also wanted to demonstrate that a Vevor lathe can turn steel. You just have to tune it up, use small radius tools, keep them sharp, and take thin cuts. Much of the materials was removed using power feed. I suppose it is old school, but I have some Stelite bits that I really like. They hold an edge longer than HSS and can be sharper than typical carbide tips.

A Tiny Cannon

 Most machining projects have been practical. Time for something impractical.

 This started out as a rough 1-inch iron bar t6hat I found rusting under the porch when I moved in. Probably not a very good grade of steel, something from concrete work or surveying. 

 I

 About 5 inches long and slightly more than 22 caliber, which would be about 1:20 scale for a 9-pounder. Basically, I scaled it off the lump of metal I had. I'm not that particular a modeler. I really just did it for the lathe practice.

 I've read many places that the the Vevor-type  lathes won't turn steel. In fact, it's about the tuning and about the tool grinding.  Any deficiencies in finish or precision are more a result of my inpatients than machine limitations. Machine rigidity is an issue, but flex of the work itself and chucking challenges are actually more important. Most of this was turned between centers, much of it using power feed and light cuts, about 10-20 thousandths at a time. Sharp tools help.

 

 I found  number of drawings of Armstrong-pattern guns. They were common for about 150 years, through the Napoleonic wars through the Civil War, with many variations based on size and which foundry they came from.

 Now I need to build the carriage. I have some old oak, steel sheet, and black safety wire.

 I wonder. Should I leave the cannon as polished steel, or should I Parkerize it or otherwise turn it black? I think black, including the steel hardware on the carriage.