Raining AGAIN.

[Colin]

Hi,

As usual it's raining so I'm unable to do anything useful in the garden; I do wish Blackie didn't like me so much and adopt someone else to constantly rain upon.

Rather than sit around moaning I've just come out of the workshop for a brew and a bickie and I can spend a few minutes adding what I've been doing.

Over the last few days I've made numerous tool grinding guides to fit the 2" belt grinder I made; I made the grinder a few years ago and have finally got around to making the attachments. The plain 90 degree guide was easy enough but the "V" 90 degree guide was rather a pain as I tried to set it up for welding; I tried a number of ways to balance the bottom of the V and finally found a perfect solution as seen in the picture; very easy once the answer is known?

Woodturning involves assorted tools including gouges; chisels and parting tools; these require different sharpening angles hence the guides needed. Having made the belt grinder and the guides then the grinding belts are very important and I've spent more money on belts than the whole machine cost me to make. I have Aluminium Oxide; Zirconia; Ceramic and Trizact belts; these will cover all my sharpening needs; a diamond belt at around £150 is rather over the top but I do have a card diamond hone and diamond bench hones. The Trizact belts at 400 grit and 800 grit will be used to sharpen plane irons etc.

I've just been using the guides to sharpen various tools and I'm delighted with the results; no longer will I be troubled with uneven bevels the guides now guarantee even bevels and this will make woodturning a lot easier. I used 60 grit Zirconia belt for rough shaping then 120 grit Ceramic for final sharpening; I can use my diamond hone to remove the burr as needed; scrapers are used with the grinding burr still on.

I thought I'd add this just for a bit of interest and I'm now heading back into the workshop to try the newly sharpened tools on a bit of woodturning.

Kind regards, Colin.

Gouge fingernail guide.

Gouge fingernail guide bushes to suit different diameter tooling.

I've just doubled the motor size and increased the belt speed to over twice what it was; ideally 4,000 fpm is needed.

Clamping solved and ready to weld.

90 degree pain guide.

90 degree "V" guide made from offcuts.

The guides were definitely well worth making as seen with these bevel grinds.

 

[Becky]

I do wish Blackie didn't like me so much and adopt someone else to constantly rain upon.

Well you'll be happy to know she paid us a visit today!

 

[Colin]

Hi,

More workshop. I've enjoyed myself today making a ring drive centre for my Graduate woodturning lathe. When I bought this Graduate from an academy it had been badly abused so I subjected it to a comprehensive refurbishment and extensive upgrade.

Quite a bit of tooling came along with it including a very abused four prong drive centre which was totally useless as it was and it's been kicking around because I already have a very good four prong drive centre which I use. Over 30 years ago Bron kindly bought me a Record Power DML 24" woodturning lathe; this came with a tailstock ring centre; recently I've seen such a centre be used as a drive centre and it takes the fear out of using a skew chisel; the centre drives very well indeed but will instantly let the timber slip during a bad "dig in". I wondered if I could convert the abused four prong drive centre into a ring drive centre?

I have a metal turning lathe but it's a very rare German Lorch Schmidt and this Lorch has non standard tapers to its head/tailstock; this meant I couldn't simply install the prong centre and start to modify it. After a lot of thought I decided to reverse chuck it gripping the prong end in the headstock chuck and bring up the tailstock with a dead centre; I used a DTI to get it running true and enjoyed converting it to a ring drive as seen in the pictures; in order to mount this tapered drive in the chuck I turned part of the taper away creating a parallel section which I then could pack out with small metal spacers; these spacers held in place with double sided self adhesive tape; taking light cuts I was then able to add the new ring profile; I didn't want to spend hours grinding lathe tools so used the ones I already had and it turned out OK; I've not yet tried to drive any timber using it but I know it will work; here's the YouTube video which gave me the inspiration;

At around 33 minutes into the video it makes more sense what I'm on about because such a ring drive can be seen in action and its safety features are well worth having; a lump of timber being violently rejected due to a dig in at 3,000 rpm isn't fun to be on the receiving end of. So I've now got a 3MT ring drive costing me nothing other than an happy session in the workshop.

Thanks for letting me know Becky; I love to share Blackie at any and every opportunity; he's put plenty of rain down here too today.

Kind regards, Colin.

Some people should be banned from going near machinery let alone trying to use it.

Turned parallel section allowing the taper to be gripped in the four jaw Lorch chuck with spacers.

Turning the prongs away using light cuts.

I Love lathework in both wood and metal; ring centre completed costing nothing.