Ideas and Tips from Dragonflies workshop

[Bryan Milham]

Well being back on my feet again I got a while in the workshop this afternoon, Took some photo's of my Jigs & gadgets as promised.

Sorry for any I've posted before, thought they'd do well all in one thread.

So lets start with the most important, refreshments,

To keep the sawdust and shavings out (I know, it's lost it's knob).

[Bryan Milham]

My smock. The following are the mods I’ve made to my Smock.

When I ordered my Smock I asked for some material scraps, from them I made;

A chuck key loop

On the other side a similar loop for the battery pack from my powered mask.

Of course, a pen pocket

And the standard tools I keep in the pockets

[Bryan Milham]

Things I keep close to the lathe;

The guitar string makes me a pricker, great for clearing gummed up CA nozzles and clearing the dust that collects in the chuck jaw screws and gets compacted by the Allen key. If anyone is interested, by all accounts it’s a G String!
Also the small drills I regularly use for making my Christmas ornaments

My sanding arbours, as I’ve said before I don’t put my inertia sanding arbours into my chuck, they show the range from Large and small head for C Jaws and one for my 1” Pin Jaws, so I can fit an arbor no matter which jaws I’m using.

My locally made Tool Rests, 7” and 3”. The standard one is 12” and far too wide for some small items, also (as noted in another thread set at scraping height).

I use an old tea towel over my lathe bed when I’m changing jaws, the screws don’t bounce so well. Also I’ve acquired a ball ended Allen Key-driver. Far easier to use.

[Bryan Milham]

A few Odd’s & Sod’s.

On eBay I notice that a set of screws (qty eight) for a SuperNova chuck are £5 (ouch). Down the local Nuts & Bolts shop 6 of each type (I normally only lose one at a time) to suit my chucks cost me £1.26, you do the sums.

Fruit Chucks. The one on the right is the normal screw type chuck, in a piece of wood to fit my C Jaws, I don’t like it?
The one on the left is my preferred version. The long ‘Gold Screw’ (3.5mm x 70mm) can be screwed into the bit of wood and then the chuck can be wound up to tighten the two together. The foam is to prevent bruising the fruit. The gold screw also has a parallel thread, just like the larger screw threads used to mount blanks. It also locks into my C jaws.

I found 2 old thread bobbins in a car boot sale, One immediately became a Fruit Cone. I mounted it in a bit of wood s to suit my C Jaws and lined it with more of my foam.
The other will one day become a Kirsten Cone (try Google).

We should not grind on the side of our wheels, so when I spotted a 150 diamond grit lapidary (gemstone polishing) wheel for £15 I knew where it was going. Great for my skews.

[Bryan Milham]

A long time ago I saw a famous turners put a halogen peabulb into a form so he could see the light through it while working on the outside. I liked the idea but not at 240V? So I bought a bag of Ultra-bright LEDs, powered by an old 5V Mobile Phone charger (at last something to do with them), I made this Internal Lighting bar. There is a 2 Morse Taper on the other end, so it can sit in my tailstock.

I got this idea from Frans Brown, it’s a sliding tool rest. I can move it deeper into a vase as I hollow and it limits the amount of overhang for my tool. It’s a 19mm bar ( a homemade drill I found in another car boot sale).

Clearing the wood chips from inside my vases, old Radio Aerials with washers on the end. The small one is a bit of bent brazing wire for getting the chips out of small holes.

[Bryan Milham]

This is a standard C Jar mounting ring, except I bought  them from a guy called Lee Shore (from Norwich) via ebay. £12 each. I’ll not post his contact details openly but if you want them, pop me PM and I’ll pass his e-mail address

One thing I've made with them is this reversing disk. Straight onto my C Jaws, position the platter or bowl and bring up the tailstock, job done.
It needs to be covered with router matting (the non-slip stuff from the cheepy shops does not do a good enough job).

Ah, Phi Callipers. Phi, the golden ratio (1:1.618) is the true 1/3 to 2/3 ratio we all work to. Again use google or PM me and I’ll send you a set of instructions.

This one I'm still working on, it’s a thickness gauge. Last year on a hollowing course with Mark Sanger I was trying to get a thickness gauge around the bottom of my form.
Mark explained the problem I was suffering and explained the offset error of not being able to get squarely across the end of the form was called a Cosine Error.
I figured there must be a way I could measure the thickness without the error and have so far come up with this (the long bar slides).
I’m still working on a way to add a measurement system to it so I can directly read the thickness. More when I get there (unless you manage it first and tell how to do it).

[Bryan Milham]

Well, that's it for now folks.

Come on, keep posting your useful jig and gadgets.

[Les Symonds]

(I know, it's lost it's knob).

I do believe that Dewi could make one of those for you!

Les

[Bellringer75]

This one i use what doing a load of pens at once



and this one for all the drills and trimmers for pens have add more since the picture



this one for celtic knots and cutting pen blanks to set size



And lastly my circle cutting jig

[woodndesign]

(I know, it's lost it's knob).

I do believe that Dewi could make one of those for you!

Les

ROFL ...  ..  ..  Is that about 4"s ..

Cheers   Dewi aka David

[Paul Disdle]

Thanks for all the inspiration

Lee Shore is one of our club members his details  can be found here: http://www.norwichwoodturners.co.uk/resources.html

His own website is currently being built

Paul

[Bryan Milham]

Paul,

thank you for that, I would appreciate you letting me know when Lee's website is up and running properly.

It that it folks?

Nothing from any of our professional turners?

There must be other homemade gadgets and ideas out there.

[Paul Disdle]

Will do I am busy building the site now.

I will post some of my things probably tomorrow. This is the link to one of my ideas:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Painting-Varnish-Staining-Assistant/

Paul

[Bryan Milham]

In answer to a request and as we cannot attach documents etc to Private Messages, I'm posting the instructions for the Phi Callipers here, please help yourself.