Your Such a Tool

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Thanks Mike and that is usually the 1st question people ask.

The answer to that is "It was always there ;-)"

If you're still intrigued, although I think you'll probably guess now, I'll elaborate further...

I think we all know how it got there... lol

My question is how long did it take to get the ball almost perfectly round!
 
I think we all know how it got there... lol

My question is how long did it take to get the ball almost perfectly round!

Quite a while. Once it has been separated from the posts the shaping has to be done, without removing any wood from the posts themselves.

You can just leave it rough, like the one here:
**broken link removed**
but I prefer to have a finer finish.
 
About that bowl... When you say Friction Polish do you mean you polished it without wax or any other agent? I don't have a lathe but the boss at work is looking for something to replace his smithy (all in one bench top thing made in china, has a lathe, drill press, and other utilities.) and when he finds what he's looking for I'm gonna make him an offer on this one. I't would be nice to have something like that for home projects. Dinner ware might be my first project, if I can get it.
 
About that bowl... When you say Friction Polish do you mean you polished it without wax or any other agent? <snip>

Once sanded, with the bowl still on the lathe you apply your chosen finish, spin up the lathe and then apply firm pressure to generate heat & quickly dry it.

You can get ready made polishes ...https://www.woodcentral.com/russ/finish10.shtml ...but on that bowl I just used several coats of cellulose sanding sealer, the last coat being buffed using a fresh cloth with a little oil.

The final step was a coating of beeswax.
 
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Once sanded, with the bowl still on the lathe you apply your chosen finish, spin up the lathe and then apply firm pressure to generate heat & quickly dry it.

I used to love making bowls at school

We've got a customer (or perhaps had, he might have died?) at work who made loads of bowls in his shed. He glued scraps of different woods together and turned out really beautiful multi-coloured bowls. If we ever came across any interesting pieces of wood we used to drop them in for him - I'm trying to think of his name?, it was something like Lacrosse (but not quite that), I always thought the name sounded French or Canadian.
 
Time to revive this thread, I miss tool talk. Post pics of your favorite tools.
 
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OK, I will bite.

The tool which I show here is not the most sophisticated thing you could think of bit I made it myself and find it very useful.

It is a tool inserting (and removing) pins from matrix board (eg Veroboard).

I made it in my lathe from a spindle removed from a scrap printer.

The end diameter is reduced to give clearance between adjacent pins on a 0.1" matrix and the end face is drilled with two holes.
One of the holes is about 5 or 6mm deep and is used during pin insertion operations, the length of the pin up to the shoulder is supported by the tool.
The other hole is just 1 or 2mm deep and is used to push pins out of the board if I want to make changes (or just plain get it wrong!).

The rod is then inserted into file handle to give it a safe comfortable grip.

JimB
 
This is all your fault Mike, I should be doing other stuff and here I am posting pics on ETO!

This is where I store my most used electronics tools.

It is made from MDF and a few strips of generic wood and held together with screws and wood glue.

The screwdrivers etc sit in holds drilled through the strip of wood, the pliers and cutters sit on short lengths of wooden dowel set into the wood strip, and the solder sucker is held by a "Terry" clip.

The whole thing is held to the upright in the plasterboard wall by two screws, one at the top and one at the bottom.

JimB
 
We had all those tools.. and more (from first post) at school when I was ~10 to 16 years old. Inspired me so much I build an electric guitar from scratch (all the wood parts). I don't own much fancy tools, but I have access to couple of well equipped workshops.
 
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Hi Mike,
Heres a few pic's of my BIG BOYS TOYS......

My Bridgeport mill showing the setup for roughing down the crankcase of the 5cyl radial engine I'm designing.

View attachment 67541


My Mill/Drill and Surface grinder

View attachment 67542

My Weiler Toolroom Lathe, German quality at it's best

View attachment 67543

Not the best pic but here's my old flat belt lathe

View attachment 67544

Now heres a pic of the VFD that powers the flat belt lathe

View attachment 67545

As far as tooling goes I won't there as I have literally ton's of it, when my Dad died I brought 9 ton home and had to leave some behind as I didn't have enough room to fit it all.

Cheers Bryan
 

Nice work. That's the best part of owning your own lathe, is making tools.
 
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