A pipe tool and a pantograph

A strange mixture of topics. But bear with me. I got so exicted about using the graver on the Taig that I decided to make something useful on it. The result is a pipe tool. This is the thing us pipe smokers use to tamp down the pipe, clean out the bore, and scrape out the pipe bowl.

The handle was turned on the Taig out of Aluminum. Freehand, with the graver. I am not yet in the brass-turning league, I am working my way up to it. The wire stem cleaner is "music wire" from Lowe's. It says "easily bent for school projects." Hah! Easily bent  by Superman, yes. I had to anneal it to forge the loop. The blade is an ex-hacksaw blade ground to shape and moderately sharpened. There is a slot milled in it, and a brass rivet to hold it all together. It works like a charm. Note the taper at the end of the handle; all by hand. It acts as the tamper. Altogether an extension of the Taig lathe.

The above pic will give you and idea of scale.

So the next thing for this week is that I got all exited about Stefan Gottteswinter's YouTube channel (q.g.) because he has a marvellous precision engraving machine. It is based on the pantograph principle. So what is a panotgraph? It is a device that allows you to reduce, or expand,  a basic pattern in a given ratio. If you are trying to make something very small, it is an advantage to make it twice (or more) times larger and then reduce it via pantograph. So what is a pantograph?

A simple paralleogram. The corners can all pivot. Across the bottom bar are a row of holes,   into which I stick a Sharpie. The midpoint gives me a 2:1 redusction. 1/3 of the way across gives me 3:1. To the right of the midpoint, I get magnification. Not too interested in that.

This is a crude mockup. I am using Sharpies in the holes and tracing the image of a crude letter O on the paper; I did the O freehand. The pin next to the big wood O is the tracer end. The whole thing is a flimsy contraption, built in a few hours, but I got the principle of the thing down with it.

Next thing to do is to rebuild this thing out of metal and adapt it to take a Dremel tool. Then I can do some serious stuff. Stay tuned.

The grave(r) state of affairs

So this afternoon I decided to play on the Taig lathe. I have been doing a project, which I will describe later. It requires great precision and careful measuring. Well, I was kind of tired of the .01 mm stuff. Wanted something  more freehand. I have been reading my clockmacking/watchmaking books. They do not always employ toolpost-held tools. Instead they use hand-held tools called gravers. These are not unlike wood-turning tools on a wood lathe. But the idea is the same. You use the graver much like you would use a skew chisel in wood turning. The book said "it is not mysterious. Take a piece of faced-off brass and round the corners. That will get you started". OK, let's try it.

Using Handy Bandy I sawed off a piece of aluminum rod. I did not dare to use brass because it is expensive and not easy to obtain. About 20 minutes later...

... I had the shape  you see above. The end looks rather like a ball and the other decoration is sort of an ellipsoid. All freehand. Whee! This is fun! Notice I was using the chuck. Not a good idea, because the tool can hit the chuck. So what is a graver?

A graver is nothing more than a chisel. I had this tool, which you see above. I had made it to cut threads on the pole lathe by chasing. I reground it. With it, I faced off (squared) the end of the bandsaw cut -- freehand. It takes quite some practice to learn how to use a graver. There are three axes (pitch, roll, yaw) and you have to get all three right. Note I am using the standard Taig wood-turning tool rest.

After a while I learned my wood-turning parting tool works just as well for cutting grooves in Aluminum as it does on wood. Not surprising, Steel much harder than Ally. So I learned to rough out with the parting tool and blend in with the graver.

Much more to learn. For instance, the chuck is a bad idea. It interferes with tool movement. So fortunately I have acquired a set of ER collets and an adapter to replace the Taig collets. This is a much better option than the chuck. More to come. Still learning, but it is very enjoyable.