Clamp it in a vise. The slit makes the wood close around the steel rod and holds it fast. Then you can e.g. drill it, which I did, all the way through. Fortunalely the hole was started by a previous project so I didn't have to center it. Then I sawed the spacer in half with a hacksaw, a marvellous tool. Use the same block to do the sawing. Guides the saw. At the end of the day I had to roughly equal pieces. Trim up with a file, still on the block. At the end of the day I had two spacers.For the record the spacers are steel 6.3 mm (1/4") hardware store stuff.
You can just see the spacers. Now I have a spindle at right angles to the lathe axis, marvellous.
What I really want to do is cut clock gears. So for this I need a dividing plate and this is my next project. We will see how it goes. I will also need gear cutters. I will have to make these. This is Alaska. We do have Home depot, and Lowe's, but we do not have machinist's supply houses. Got to order from afar, and pay shipping costs too. So I will make my own cutters. They must fit a Dremel shaft. I intend to start out with plastic gears. Dremel will certainly cut plastic! But your high-precision quartz clock uses plastic (probably lexan) gears so maybe I can cut one too.
I have also, quite accidentally, got the beginning of an ornamental lathe, but that's a separate post. Still need a dividing plate. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment