my variation on lathe

[maaaslo]

 

i was thinking, do i have room for lathe, and more importantely, do i have money to waste? ( considering i love models it is not waste of course...) so i was thinking, many people use drills and atach parts of the real lathe onto the wooden jig frame. i do not have room for that. after i  spoke to my friend, who owns joinery shop and he explained to me how they use the lathe on processing very thin materials, ive had an idea what to do.

i raided my wifes kitchen drawer and aquired her thermo glove. ive cut a bit of coarse grade sanding paper. fitted the boxwood dowel into the acu drill and grabbed the whole thing in my hands.

first i was surprised at just how effective this very primitive setup is. in matter of 1 minute ive had the bowsprit half done. it only needs a bit of fine sanding done and it would be ready to fit...

arent the most primitive tools some of the best? there is litterally nothing that could go wrong with this...

 btw, i recommend using outside, or perhaps in dedicated workshop: very messy...

 

 

Edited February 17, 2013 by maaaslo

[Ryland Craze]

Thanks maaaslo,

 

I do my mast and spars the same way except I use sanding sticks, the type that women use for filing their nails.  I pick them up from the local beauty shop supply store.  They come in various grades.

[maaaslo]

 

Ryland

i am not taking it away from you, it works good for you, but those sanding sticks do cost a lot of money (at east over the time).

i bought a whole roll of this sanding paper, i thing grade 120 for near to nothing. this way its going to last me a life time... it barelly was showing any use on it.

also, if you push too hard on the stick, you bend the dowel you work on. if you hold it in the hand, you wil avoid any vibrations... and it really takes fraction of time, you can push as hard as you want and have the drill on full...

 

Pavol

[Snowmans]

I have also done this, it works well for the smaller pieces. I mounted the drill and used a small file for detail work.

[maaaslo]

 

i havent tried file yet, mainly because i only tried to do rough sanding to measurements... but i will, thank you for idea.

[Modeler12]

To take the last idea one step further, I can see that a simple support for the end of the dowel would give you less wobble and more control. The picture below was taken when I did my masts and spars on an old Shopsmith, but I can see using a support clamped in a vise could work in a pinch. In my case below I also was able to use a center support but that is not necessary. The plate was stationary and the hole in this plate was just a fraction larger then the dowel and with reasonable care of not forcing the filing and sanding, it worked fine.