William's Blog at LumberJocks.com http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog Sat, 25 May 2013 19:21:13 GMT As The Lathe Turns #34: The One Piece http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36205 The feedback I’ve been getting on the pens I’ve been making told me that a lot of people, maybe even most, like the pens best without the band, or center ring. I wanted to go a step further though. It absolutely pains me to cut some of the woods to make these pens because, no matter how well you line up the grain while assembling them, the wood never seems to look as beautiful as it did before it was split down the middle to cover the two blanks to be used with the slimline pen kits that I’ve been using.
What I wanted to do was to figure out a way to use one solid piece of wood for a pen without spending more than I can afford for higher priced kits. I knew there had to be a way, but I just couldn’t seem to figure it out. Then I stumbled across this article, realized how simple it is, and couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten it till now.

The first one piece pen I made was out of ziricote. I started with this wood because I just think it is a beautiful wood. Also, the last pen I made with this species of wood, I used a blank that was so pretty that I think it actually physically hurt me to cut it.
I was quite happy with the result.
The hardest part of making the one piece pen, in my opinion, is getting the seven millimeter hole drilled cleanly all the way through a four and a half inch long blank. There are several ways to do it. I will tell you how I done it, but keep in mind that it is not the only way.
I think drilling the blank on the lathe would be the best way to go. I have a drill chuck for my tailstock, but did not feel confident enough in my ability to get it perfectly centered in my expansion jaws to drill such a small blank straight enough not to have a side blowout.
I decided to go with the drill press. I had a long enough drill bit. The problem is that my drill press only has four inches of travel on the quill. So I drilled as far as I could with it. I drilled slowly and backed out often to clear the material. It is easy to overheat the bit going this deep. Then after I’d drilled four inches, as far as I could, I loosened the chuck, drew the bit out of the chuck about three quarters of an inch, and then finished plunging all the way through the other end of the blank.

I was happy enough that I decided to then try a new wood that I had never turned before. This pen is made of chicarella. The blank looked amazing. However, after turning it almost down to size, it looked instead kind of bland. So I played with the shape and added some burn lines to dress it up a tad.
Then my wife seen the pens. She absolutely loved the ziricote pen. The chicarella? Not so much. She explained though that it really wasn’t the wood she liked about the first one, but the one piece design and the smooth shape. Then she left the shop. This gave me ideas. She liked the pen design, but not the wood. I remembered that a while back she looked at one of my cocobolo pens and went on and on about what a beautiful wood that was.
So…......

Everyone ought to know by now. If I see an opportunity to make my lovely wife something that I think she’ll like, I do it.
Here is her cocobolo, one piece, pen.

]]> Sat, 25 May 2013 19:21:13 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36205 William William As The Lathe Turns #33: Promises And Challenges http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36179 Today I needed to get to work on some deer antlers and fulfill a promise I’d made. You see, I told several people that if they’d find me some deer antlers, I’d make them a pen. I had done one a while back. I still had to make one for my son though who had located me some antlers. I also wanted to make one for my display for anyone who comes to my shop to look at them.


This is the one I made for my son. I was only able to get this one pen out of three racks of antlers. I got the pen done because a promise is a promise. However, I had to show him what I’m looking for in antlers so he’ll know what to look for next time.
The antlers he’d brought me were all bleached out from age. Most of them were almost completely white. When they are that bleached out, the outer parts of the antler becomes brittle, while the inside becomes soft. I have already found out from experience that this sometimes makes for interesting projectiles coming from the lathe. I was glad I was able to get the pen done for him though. At least he tried.


This is the one I made for my display. I pick shapes for these pens to try and leave at least a tiny bit somewhere on the pen of the outer part of the antler. This gives an area to show that it is in fact deer antler. Otherwise, in my opinion, it would just look like dirty ivory.
If you look at the outer antler on this pen and the first one above, you can see the difference in color. This pen has a more natural look to it while the first one has a color that is light enough that it almost looks to me like a defect instead of antler.

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I got these two pens done and was thinking on what I wanted to do next. I decided to tackle a different animal, the zebra. No I don’t have any zebra parts to turn. I have some zebra wood though that has been driving me nuts.
A while back, I went to Picken’s Hardwood. It is a little piece of heaven on earth in Clinton Mississippi. They have more species of hard woods in one place than I’ve ever seen.
While there, I picked up a piece of zebra wood for next to nothing. It was so cheap because the grain was running the wrong way. What I mean is, when making pens, it is preferable to have the grain running along the length of the pen. This piece I bought had it running the opposite direction. It was a small off cut from a board and wasn’t much good for anything else. I was told by the lady there that it probably wouldn’t be good for pens either. That sounded like a challenge to me, and I like challenges.



It was a success!
Now let me tell the truth about why this excited me so much.
I bought the blank and cut it up as carefully as I could. I wound up with four pen blanks out of it. This was the fourth attempt at making this pen, so it was my last blank in this style.
I try to tell about all my adventures. What I don’t always tell is all my misadventures. This zebra wood pen is a good example of that. Three different times now I’ve tried making this pen. Three different times I would get almost done and the blank would blow apart on the tubes. It is a pretty hard wood. I was keeping my tools as sharp as I could. When it got close though, it seemed to always be too much for the cross grain to handle.
I set about it this time though with a different plan. I turned it down as a small a cylinder as I was comfortable with to start with. Then I start making the tapering cuts towards the ends with a freshly sharpened skew chisel. Before getting too close though, I put the tools aways and went to eighty grit sandpaper. I finished getting the blanks down to size using the sandpaper. Then of course I went through the grits to get a good finishable surface.
between the Abranet abrasive I told about yesterday, and my improving skills at applying a CA glue finish, I am extremely happy how this one turned out.

]]> Fri, 24 May 2013 03:32:10 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36179 William William My Shop #2: An Updated Shop Tour - 5/22/13 http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36158 I knew it had been a while since I had updated my shop tour. When I checked though, I realized that I no longer even had a shop tour posted on my homepage, so it was time.


Welcome to William’s Wood Shop. It is a 40×50 cinder block wall shop. I’ve moved things around a little since some of you visited last, so come on in and I’ll show you around.

As you enter the shop, look to the left. You’ll notice the first thing inside the door is the coffee pot table. I have to have my coffee. It is an important part of my day if I am to be dealt with. All those bottles you see is my water supply. I do not have running water in my shop and I do not want to have to go home for water three or four times a day for water to make coffee. So my boys keep plenty of bottles full for me.
Next to the coffee pot table is my boy’s entertainment center. They spend a lot of time in my shop. When they tire of playing or watching me, they have this area set up with a television and DVD player, a computer, and one of those fancy game systems. Don’t ask me what kind. I bought it but I don’t know much about that sort of thing. I have never been able to get into the games and such.
Some of you who have been to my shop before may notice all my finished work is inside the shop. One of my grown children has moved back in. He is staying in the front room of the shop, where my finished work used to be. So I now have all my finished work in the shop area. It creates a dust problem. I have to vacuum everything off about once a month to keep a two inch thick layer of dust from settling on it all. However, since putting it all in here, I like it better having all my work open for all to see when they enter the shop.

Look right and there are tables my boys play on and do homework on during the school year. Behind that you can see a lot of my junk. The front half of the shop is mostly filled with non-wood working items. So let’s move on towards the back of the shop where the magic happens.

here almost dead center of my shop, looking towards the back right corner, here is my saw station area. I have two saws. The antique Craftsman you see to the right is set up for ripping. The Ridgid does most of the cross cutting duties.
Further back is my lathe corner, we’ll get to that later.
You can also see some of my wood stash in the back. I am not a wood addict. I can stop anytime I get ready.

This center island is a built up long story. I have added, modified, and changed this area so many times that you never know what you may find hung here. It started as a simple junk table that used to sit in my utility room at home until my wife got tired of looking at it. I moved it to the shop and added the other table to it. It is screwed to the first table to make them both more massive.
Later I added the clamp racks on top of the second table. There is two different vises attached to the mass. Mostly, the first table holds different items I grab for often, like hammer, screwdrivers, chisels, you name it. Most of it is hung from various method holders I have fabricated over time. Some things, like hammers, are just in holes I made in the old utility room table.
In this photo you see the planer up front. The second table, which mostly catches cuts I make on the table saw and such while I’m preparing material for a project is here. It has the two vises attached to it too. The clamp rack is rear of that table. A 1950 Craftsman scroll saw resides here. I use it to rough cut some things coming off the saws. Under the table is my box joint jig and dovetail machine that are both built from fellow Lumberjock, Stumpy Nub’s, design.
To give you a better idea, we’re going to have to go all around this area.

Now, going clockwise around the island, here is the utility room table. You can see my throw together plane till on the end of it. Down the side I have attached holders for screwdrivers, nail punches, chisels, and such. Thin scraps get stored under this table, closer to where I do a lot of scroll work at. There is an 80s era scroll saw attached on top of the table. On the side, that big one, is a 1947 Craftsman scroll saw. You can’t see well in this photo, but there is a lot of often grabbed small hand tool type items, like pencils, awls, and such and the hammers, all on the top surface of the table.

At the other end of the island is my Delta scroll saw. This is the saw I use for all my detail type scroll work. Beside it is the front of the 1947 saw you seen in the last photo. On the other side is my drill press.

While we are standing here, you may as well look over your shoulder, back towards the back right shop corner. Here is my lathe coner. I have the two lathes and my accessory table setup here. I once had one lathe that stayed tucked somewhere out of the way. Now I’ve gotten into it more though and the lathe area wound up taking more room up than I ever thought it would.
If you notice the blue vise on the backside of that table, that is an old Record brand vise. I use it mostly for pressing pens together. It used to be on my work bench. I got tired of having to go half way across the shop to use it to press pens though, so I moved it over here. Now I need to eventually find another one for my work bench. I now don’t like walking halfway this way across the shop to use it for things other than pressing pens.

Now back in the hole that is the back left corner of the shop, this is my main, not so pretty, workbench. I love my workbench. I would never trade it for one of those fancy, pretty benches. Don’t get me wrong, those benches are nice. This table though is battle tested. I have beat on it, stood on it, hell, I’ve had three other guys standing on it with me when we put the light over the table. It does what I need it to do and has never failed to perform as it should. It just needs to be sturdy enough to take all the abuse I throw at it.
This is where I do most assembly and pretty much anything else that doesn’t require specialized tools. As a matter of fact, if I can bring the specialized tool here, I do that here too. My routers and bits are under thise side of the table for easy access. The spring clamps, dremil tools, and air nailers are hung on one end. The cordless drilled are underneath. The sanding station is at the far end.
The saw horses you see on the other side, that is where I break down large material for me to handle. There is more lumber stored under that side of the work bench and under tha saw horses.
Look even further back and you can see my resaw band saw and my scroller band saw. Both of these are shop built. Past that is more wood. Don’t look. I told you I do not have a hoarding problem.
To the left of the bandsaws you may notice two large wooden cases besides the filing cabinets. This is my entertainment center. The filing cabinets hold plans, wood working books and magazines, and wood working catalogues. The stereo is on top of the filing cabinets and is wired to large speakers that are stategically placed in the rafters all over the shop. Those two large wooden cases are my CDs.

Althought you may have noticed wood in other areas of the shop, this is supposed to be the actual wood storage areas. The ladder is there to get to the plywood that I have stored in the rafters above all this. Stop thinking what you’re thinking. No I am not obsessed with wood. I told you I can stop anytime I want.

Before you leave the shop, look back towards the back corner again to get a better view of those saw horses I told you about and the work bench. On this end of the work bench you can see my large end vise. I made that out of pipe clamps to hold large objects that my other vises wouldn’t handle. Mostly I use it to hold large pieces of woods when I route signs.
Look past all this in the back corner and you can see I have some cypress on one table and the table closest to the fridge is sycamore and some odd and end scraps that I can’t bring myself to part with until I find a use for it.
What’s that you say?
Yes, maybe I DO have a wood hoarding condition.

I hope you enjoyed the shop tour. If you’re ever in my area, get in touch with me before you come and I’ll make arrangements to show you around better. I’ll make sure to have you a clean coffee cup waiting when you get here.

]]> Thu, 23 May 2013 01:40:08 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36158 William William As The Lathe Turns #32: A Gift From a Friend http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36157 Recently, I received an unexpected package in the mail. When I opened it, I discovered that a good friend had sent me several packages of Abranet abrasive. I had never heard of it before then, but this friend told me it was supposed to be great for wood turners. I was getting ready for the cradle project at the time though and had no choice to set it aside for the moment.
Well, I finished the cradle and was anxious to see if this stuff was any good. Since receiving it, I’d looked it up and read some good things about it. I wanted to see if it were true.

Abranet is a new take on sandpaper. Now I am always a tad skeptical when it comes to new takes of age old products. Sometimes there is just no way to reinvent the wheel. I am, however, always willing to give it a try.

It is a mesh type material with abrasive somehow glued or otherwise attached to the material. The idea is that dust goes through the pad and doesn’t clog up like regular sandpaper and last longer, and give a better, cleaner, sanded surface.
Yea, right. so does it do what it says it does?
I had my doubts.


I turned a pen out of bocote. I put the sandpaper aside and used nothing but the Abranet. The idea here, for me, was to see how good a job it done without allowing my regular methods interfere with the testing.
So, my review of Abranet, in short, is this. Whoever thought this bright idea up, I want to kiss them right on the lips. I am happier with it than a fat kid at a pie eating contest.
This stuff is amazing.
Any of you turners out there, you know how quickly and easily sandpaper clogs up and you have to move to another spot on it. With Abranet, if it does seem to be getting a lot of dust buildup on it, tap it on something. I just took my finger and sort of thumped at it. It knocked the dust out of the little holes and it was all of a sudden, magically, like I’d just grabbed a new piece of abrasive again. You can’t do that with sandpaper.
Pricing and selection may vary, but Abranet is available through Woodcraft or Penn State if any of you are interested in giving it a try.
Also, I’d like to thank my friend very much for sending it to me. I would probably never have tried it if you hadn’t sent me that package. This is my new favorite abrasive.
Anyway, that was out of the way, but now I was anxious to make another pen. I have several woods I’ve gotten lately that I hadn’t had a chance to try yet. Bocote was one of those woods. Another was padauk.



The padauk pen I had planned on turning similar to the bocote. I just wanted a simple design using the kit as it was intended. However, and I know this sounds cliche, but sometimes when I’m working on a project, the wood speaks to me. It tells me to go in a different direction than I intended. That was the case here.
When turning, I often stop, as one should, to check the process. When I stopped this pen, the wood had this absolutely stunning flaming look to it and was just screaming, “don’t separate me with a metal ring”. So I didn’t. I removed the middle bushing and finished turning it without the band. Seeing the result, I’m glad I did.

]]> Thu, 23 May 2013 00:15:09 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/36157 William William As The Lathe Turns #31: Turning Something Besides Wood http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35916
This is deer antler. Ever since I first seen this in the Penn State Catalogue I have wanted to try this. I live in Mississippi though. This is arguably the deer hunting capital of the world. There is no way I was paying for deer antlers when I knew that, if I asked enough people, someone around here had some lying around that would let me have them.
As it turns out, I kept forgetting about it though and finally got around to asking someone. Or rather, my wife asked someone. The maintenance man where she works at mentioned that he was a deer hunter and she asked him about deer antler, and he brought he a couple of racks the next day. So I was correct. The first person asked about them here had some for me.
I really enjoyed turning this. It was definately different than turning wood. I have enough left to do maybe two more pens out of the antlers he sent with my wife to me. I will have to be on the lookout for more.
Also, I’ve noticed other things, like bull horns in the catalogues. I don’t know where I’d get that around here, but it’s got me thinking about wild bore tusks? Basically, it seems these days that anything I see softer than metal, I start to wonder how it would turn on the lathe.
The man didn’t ask for anything in return, but of course this first pen goes to the man who gave me the antlers.

]]> Tue, 07 May 2013 01:06:34 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35916 William William As The Lathe Turns #30: The Lumberjock Pens http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35906 Most of you know of my health issues. Since we’ve been getting winter in May lately, I have been having some bad days. On top of that, I’m going through just a “blah” spell. I have only done one small project since finishing the modular marble machine. I built Matthius Wandell’s wooden ir engine. It turned into something I call the DODGE, Dad’s Old Dead Garage Expiriment. It didn’t work. I haven’t given up on it. It is something I will rebuild in the future. In the meantime though, I needed some kind of inspiration to get my butt in gear.
I started doing some much needed shop cleanup. While doing so, I was thinking on something to work on next that would inspire me enough to push through this bad spell.

Since starting on the wood turning adventures, several people have sent me wood. Also I had small pieces of wood from before beginning turning that I have now cut into pen blanks. While straightening all this, I got a bit of inspiration. I gathered up what woods came from what different people and decided to make some pens.
First I am going to go through the building of these pens. Towards the end, I will list each recipient of these pens and each of their contricutions towards this and, hopefully, it will all make sense.

After arranging woods in different ideas until I found something I was happy with, this is what I came up with. It is six different woods. They are cut on a sixty degree angle. The two ends are just what I thought looked proportional. The rest of the pieces came out to about three quarters of an inch thick to be able to fit all the pieces in the pens.

Glueup started to become messy by the time I was through. I think I learned something from this. Next time, I would only glue two or three pieces at a time on each pen, and let that set, before adding one more piece at a time. Doing this many indiviual cut pieces at a time, things seemed to want to move more than I wanted.
On two of the pens, all the pieces moved a equally large amount, leaving a staggered look to the pen. By the time I cut away the saw tooth looking pieces to make the pen blank in a usable shape for drilling and mounting, there was barely enough material left.

I got these after trimming the pieces up so I could start preparing them.

I decided I wanted to keep with the same colored harware throughout all the pens. This turned out to be gold plated since that what I first rounded up enough of. Throughout the project, it turned out to be three different style kits, but all similar in design and the same finish.
As I prepared the blanks and drilled them, I put each set of blanks in the bag with the hardware to keep from mixing things up.

Here is one of the seven pens. All of them, after turning, got a CA glue finish. On top of the CA glue, I always prefer to also put a coat of paste wax and buff them.



So I like to call these the Lumberjock pens. Starting sat the top, near the cap, the woods are ziricote, walnut, mahogany, maple, sweetgum, and box elder. Now I’d like to tell you the recipent of these pens and why. You see, one of the things I love about making pens is that it gives me the opportunity to make projects from woods that I would otherwise never get to work with, because I only need small pieces to make pens. With that being said, explaining the recipients will, I hope, make all this make more sense.

Seven pens.
Kreegan gave me the ziricote.
Chips gave me the walnut.
Grizzman gave me the mahogany.
JL7 gave me the maple.
Dave gave me the sweetgum.
Boxcarmarty gave me the box elder.
Eddie gave me the lathe that all this was turned on.
Now each of these guys will have a pen that they each know they made a contribution to, and that the other woods and the tool it was all done on came from another Lumberjock.
I’d also like to note one more person again. I did not make this person because they told me they didn’t want one. It did send something else a while back. However, Doe donated the gift card that bought the hardware that is on these pens.

I will be giving Eddie, Dave, and Chips their pens when I see them. The other four pens (it may be June with my current finances) I will be shipping to the recipients. I hope each of you enjoy your pens. Thank you for your support you have given me. Without you all I would never get to work with so many different species of woods. Until I joined and met some people here on Lumberjocks, all my adventures had been limited to about four different species of woods. You all opened up a whole new world to me. Thank you.

]]> Mon, 06 May 2013 12:15:58 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35906 William William Modular Marble Machine #12: Then Finish, The Catch, and Some Instructions http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35783 If you haven’t already seen it, you can see the finished project here.

Now the catch is, this project is not staying in my shop like the other marble machines I’ve built. This one is supposed to be shipped to Canada. My problem is, I now have to figure out the best way to ship this. It is 48×52cm, 17cm high, and weighs about 37 pounds.
That wieght is not exact. I got the weight by standing on bathroom scales with the project, then without, and subtracting for the difference. This isn’t exact but give me a general idea of the weight.
I’m open to all suggestions about the best and most cost efficient way to get this to a fellow Lumberjock across the norther border.

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Now, the rest of this last blog entry is an instructional for the person who this is going to. If you would like, you can read on. If not, thank you for checking out my blog and be sure to go check out the finished project.

After removing the cardboard and other packing materials, this is what you’ll be looking at.
Before I go further, I wanted to give you a list of exactly what you’ll be recieving.

1-base unit with pump assembly
1-bag of marbles
1-feed chute
1-elevator column
18-4×4 unit high double unit riser blocks
8-4×3 unit high double unit riser blocks
4-2×1 unit high double unit riser blocks
8-3 unit high single unit riser blocks
6-2 unit high single unit riser blocks
4-12 unit riser plates
2-6 unit riser blocks
4-5 unit riser blocks
4-4 unit riser blocks
8-3 unit riser blocks
8-2 unit riser blocks
3-flip flop units
2-zig zag tracks
3-funnels
2-circulating bowls
1-double back ramp
1-ski jump
4-long straight tracks
2-long drop tracks
3-long left exit tracks
3-long right exit tracks
4-short straight tracks
2-short drop tracks
3-short left exit tracks
3-short right exit tracks

Now, back to setting everything up.
Remove the base plates and you’ll be looking at this. You can certainly just dump it out like a kid if you’d like. I prefer to arrange everything neatly though so I can see what I’ve got. It makes it easier if you plan on building complicated tracks.

Locate the crank assembly. I’ve removed it for shipping. In this photo I show the two pieces, but when you get it, the block will be attached to the end of the shaft.

Remove the four screws from the connecting block and take it off of the shaft as you see in this photo. If you look at each end of the connecting block, there are ink pen markings I left on the ends to make it easy to tell which way it goes in order to go back in the exact same position.

Push the crank shaft through the hole in the side of the base unit where the walnut cover with the arrow is. The metal rod from the pump assembly goes into the hole in the end of the crank shaft.
The crank handle should be about one to two millimeters from the decorative walnut cover on the side of the base unit.

Place the connecting block over the end of the shaft just as it was when you removed it. Replace the four screws and tighten them down tight. This compresses the split shaft and tightens it down onto the metal pump shaft.

Place the elevator column on top of the pump assembly. You can see in this photo that there are metal alignment pins to make sure it is placed in the exact proper orientation each time. Be sure to press it down firmly over the alignment pins.

It will now look like this.

Place the feed chute back into place. You can see in this photo the notched end goes towards the front of the machine. The other end just rests on top of the pump assembly.

Put the base plates back in position and you’re ready to start building.


There is a five unit riser block permenantly attached towards the top of the elvator column for you to start with. If you wish to work with a double track, start with a flip flop. While any of the three will work, two of them require use of additional riser blocks to bring them to the proper height. I made this one out of a pretty piece of mahogany burl I had to distinguish it from the other two. If you start with it on top of the riser block that is attached to the elevator column, it is the proper height for the elvator exit. The next pieces are tracks that you have to use other pieces to support along side each side of the flip flop. As marbles come out, they’ll alternate each direction from the flip flop.
Build your tracks however you wish. Marbles are fed from the feed chute to the pump and go up and out the elvator column. You are only limited by your own imagination. All tracks must end feeding back into the feed chute if you want the track system to keep cycling back through.

Building track systems that don’t leak marbles all over the place is a matter of trial and error. Be prepared to chase down flying marbles. It happens. Don’t be scared to experiment. Add block on the other side of problem areas just to keep marbles from flying off. Marbles are unpredictable. No matter how carefully you build, some will seem like they have a mind of their own and fly off somewhere waiting for you to find them. This is part of the fun.

You’ve already seen how the pieces lock together using marbles. With the marbles I am shipping with the machine, I’ve had no problems building track systems and still have enough to keep it fed well enough. However, due to lost marbles, or if you just prefer more, you may have to find a source to purchase more marbles. If you do, you need to drill a 5/8 inch hole into a scrap piece of wood like I’ve shown in the blogs and test each marble, one by one. I’ve found that marble sizes are not consistant. If they are a tad small, that’ fine. If they are oversized though, they will not work.

A lot of the pieces, like the 12 unit riser plate, has multiple holes to be placed numerous ways. It is not necessary though to use a marble in every hole. Usually, two marbles for each block is plenty enough to keep it from moving.
A lot of the marbles are tight in the holes. This makes it sometimes a pain getting the marbles out of the holes. Also, this requires you sometimes to press down firmly to get the pieces to lock together correctly. This is fine. All the pieces are new. Over time and use, the holes will naturally enlarge a tiny bit and things will fit better. The only issue I’ve had with this is sometimes I may accidentally drop a marble and it’ll get into the base plate and not want to come out. It’s not big deal. I just leave it there. I get it out when I change designs by flipping the plate upside down and tapping the bottom side of it. It can stay put and I may use it later to hold another block in place.
If you do choose to use all available holes for every block instead of the two per block (unless otherwise needed) to hold pieces in place, there is a chance you’ll run out of marbles and not have enough to feed the tracks fast enough to keep things moving satisfactorily. If this starts to happen, you’ll have to use less marbles to stabilize the pieces, or you’ll have to get extra marbles. That is up to you as the individual user.

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I guess that’s it. The only thing left to say is have fun. I hope you enjoy it very much.
I will include a note when I ship it with my phone number in case you have any questions that can’t wait. Also you know you can reach me through private message here on Lumberjocks if you don’t mind waiting for an answer. It isn’t difficult though. I only included as much info here as I did because I wanted to be absolutely sure that you’d have no issues with the machine.

And a special thanks to any and all who followed this blog. I hope you enjoyed seeing what went into it. It’s a lot of work, but it is a fun project. If you’d like to build this design, don’t forget, go to here to get the plans.
Or if you’d rather have on with a fixed track, you can see the other marble machine I built from the same man’s plans here. It was a fun one to do as well.

]]> Sun, 28 Apr 2013 04:05:06 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35783 William William Modular Marble Machine #11: Preview http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35756 I was ready and anxious to get back to testing this morning. You may remember from last time though that I had a few things to do first. So off to town I went for more marbles to start with. I bought six bags of marbles to be safe, but there is more to that in a bit.

Also I felt a need to make more of the tallest solid riser blocks. These are simple and didn’t take long at all to whip up. Actually, I probably could have gotten by with less than the twelve I wound up making, in addition to the ones I already had. I always say though, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.

Then it was back to building up some track to test everything. With what I bought this morning, I had enough marbles to test everything, but I still don’t have enough. I need five eighths marbles for this design. The problem is, out of each bag of fifty marbles I bought this morning that are supposed to be five eighths, only about five to seven marbles in each bag were acceptable. Most are oversized and won’t fit the holes. Some have flat spots and don’t roll well. I don’t know if it’s just a bad batch or what, but I have got to find a solution. I can’t keep just buying more and more marbles. The coffee can with the rejected marbles is getting almost full, while the usable can still runs dry when I’m testing.
Anyway, I’ve gotten a few messages with questions that mostly deal with confusion as to how all this actually goes together. So, in addition to the photo above, here is a video.

Next thing I wanted to test was that all the pieces are supposed to fit into the base if one was to decide to store the whole mess, in a closet, for example.

Remember I made some extra pieces. It all fit.

It was like working a three dimensional puzzle to get it all in there though. I just wanted to see if it fit. I believe if I actually wanted to put it away in use, I would elect to place certain pieces, like maybe the square riser blocks, on top of the base plates to make it easier to fit everything else inside. This would free up space and make things easier, while still keeping everything neatly together to pull out and play with at a later date.

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That is going to be the last post for at least a few days. All that is left is a finish. I still have yet to figure out what finish I want to use though. A couple of my other marble machines have no finish at all. I do want to put something on this one though. I know I’ll finish the base if I don’t do anything else. The blocks I am considering leaving unfinished. I am already having issues with some marbles being mighty tight because they are on the verge of being too large. I am afraid that putting finish on them will compound this issue.
I will give this some though and decide. Then I will post a video of the completely finished project when I am done. I hope you have enjoyed seeing what goes into a project like this. They are a lot of fun in my opinion. They are time consuming though and not for the impatient or easily frustrated.

]]> Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:26:36 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35756 William William Modular Marble Machine #10: Testing..............Ooooops! http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35746
Today started the testing process. I didn’t feel well at all, but figured that I could handle just testing, as I didn’t foresee any problems, so off to the shop I went. I was wrong. Oh boy was I wrong. There was a problem, a huge one. While building up tracks, nothing lined up as it should.
After doing some measuring and double, and triple checking, I found the problem. I had made a gigantic mistake. I’m not talking about a little boo-boo. I’m talking a mistake of epic proportions. This is my worst fear when building something like this. Some problems don’t present themselves until everything else is done and you are down to final testing.

The problem was the feed trough. You may recall how much I keep harping on keeping that same 3.2cm spacing grid pattern through out the machine? In order to do so, the feed trough that runs through the middle of the two base plates was supposed to be 3.2cm wide, with the middle section being 1.8cm and the two sides being 0.7cm. Well apparently I had one of those brain farts I am so famous for. I somehow, in my head, added those two side measurements together and came up with two 1.4cm sides. That made the trough 4.6cm wide and threw everything off the grid by 1.4cm. That just wasn’t going to do.
So I done some head scratching trying to figure out a way to correct this situation without rebuilding the whole base unit.
I tried offsetting holes in the block that is up high on the elevator column. That worked, unless you tried running track across the feed trough and back. So that still wouldn’t work. There was just no way around it. At the very least I was going to have to rebuild the feed trough.

After rebuilding the feed trough I had to enlarge the notches on the base plates to bring them over to the new, narrower trough. This left a 0.7cm gap on the sides. I was out of suitable plywood to redo the base plates, and that material isn’t exactly cheap, so I made and glued in filler strips on each side of the base.

Then it was back to testing. After making the modifications to the trough and plates, all was lining up ok now. However, I am not happy with the building of the tracks at all. You see, there are plenty of track elements to build any kind of configuration you can think of. The problem is that it is a puzzle to get it all supported high enough without running out of riser blocks. There are plenty of blocks to tie things together, but not enough of the taller blocks to build upwards. In fact, it is too much of a puzzle in my opinion. The idea is supposed to be to be able to build whatever you like, not to have to solve puzzles to do so. So I am going to make more of the tall square blocks.
Another thing I noticed was that, while building all of this, and tying it all together using marbles, the marbles I have are running out quickly. I need to go buy some more marbles. You see, the marbles come fifty to a bag. However, of the bags I’ve bought so far, less than half of them are five eighths inch or smaller so they’ll work with this grid design. It’s alright though. At a dollar a bag, I figure I’ll buy five or six more bags, weed out the oversized ones, and have enough to get the task done without further issues.
So, I only thought I was done except for the testing. I need more blocks and marbles. That is next on the agenda.

]]> Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:49:00 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35746 William William Modular Marble Machine #9: Track Blocks - Part 3 http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35734 I had a good day today. Actually, it wasn’t a good day at all, but I did get a lot done. To tell the truth, I was angry today. It’s a long story, but I was just mad. When I get that way, I have a tendency to push back any pain I may be having and just go. I usually pay for it later, but I get a lot done.

That being said, this is what I got done today.

Three funnels.

Two circulating bowls.

One ski jump.

One rocker ramp.

Two flip flops.

And of course they all have the same grid measured holes in the bottoms as all the other pieces.
You may notice in this photo that the circulating bowls have a half hole removed on one face of the bottom. There is a good reason for this. These are usually going to mounted low over pieces below them. They need this relief area so marbles have room to clear them while moving on along the tracks.

And that completes all the track blocks. Here is a photo of them all, along with the riser blocks stacked neatly on top of the base plates.
Also in this photo, you can see that one of the five unit blocks got permenantly attached to the elevator column. That is so there is solid support for the beginning track pieces coming off the end of the column that the marbles will be feeding out of.

To give everyone a better idea of the magnitude of all that I’ve done lately with this project, here is all the pieces laid out in full view. The only thing you don’t see here is the base with the pump mounted in it.
Next up, I have to test and possibly fine tune the fitment of any pieces that are problematic. Then everything needs to have a finish put on it.

]]> Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:12:49 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35734 William William Modular Marble Machine #8: Track Blocks - Part 2 http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35712 Next up on the track block list is the zig-zag tracks.

As you can see, these track pieces are double wide, but get the same grid measured hole pattern as everything else so it can be locked in place using marbles.
I debated on what wood to use for these zig-zag pieces. I have so far made all the riser blocks and track blocks out of sycamore. Then I realized today that these pieces, and a few others are larger than any sycamore I have on hand. I thought about gluing up material to make stock big enough. The problem is, I really do not want glued up stock any time I can avoid it. I prefer solid wood. I do have large enough stock in sapelle though. So I made the decision that using sapelle for some of the pieces would allow me to use solid stock, and add more color to the mix. So some parts from here out will be made of sapelle.
Back the the zig-zag tracks, the ramp portion is made of sapelle, while the rest is sycamore.

The top part of the ramps have triangles of wood that makes the marbles zig and zag through to the bottom. You may notice, the two are mirror pieces to each other.
Ok, I have an admission to make today. The pieces you see here are my third attempt at making these correctly. Have you ever had one of those days you just shouldn’t have went to the shop?

The stacks of pieces are steadily growing as the days go by.

]]> Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:47:13 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35712 William William Modular Marble Machine #7: Track Blocks - Part 1 http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35687 I’ve decided to break the track blocks into parts in addition to the separate parts of the project as a whole because the track blocks will cover multiple days of work.
Before I start with that though, I also need to show the rest of the riser blocks. I did not see a need to make another post about them because it was only more of the basic same process as making the first part of them.

On the right side in this photo is the rest of the riser blocks. I finished these yesterday but wasn’t up to posting last night. All these blocks are long narrow blocks that will be used to tie everything together as you build up the marble tracks.

I decided to show this photo of all the riser blocks laid out on the table to show better the amount of blocks that go into this. These are just the risers. Today it was time to start on the actual track blocks that the marbles will ride on.

I’m starting on the straight track blocks. These start are just square blocks of wood in two different lengths. The underside of all the track blocks get the same grid measured holes to lock in with the riser blocks. I showed in previous posts how this works.
The four blocks you see in the lower left corner are the only ones with holes through them. These also have three millimeter cutouts on the bottom of them on the end with the holes. This provides clearance for marbles if the track is built to have them fall on close tracks below them.

Each of these blocks, in both lengths, get the same six degree taper cut on them. This provides the downward slope for gravity to take over and move the marbles.

Then I used a router to cut the length of the slots in the pieces. Next, I used a router bit in the drill press to mill out the exits on some pieces. Each piece is tested multiple times. If there are any problems they are fine tuned using a dremil drill with a sanding drum on it and lightly shaping the pieces until things work smoothly.

Here I have restacked all the riser blocks on the right side and started the stacks of track blocks on the left. As I go, the stacks keep growing.

]]> Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:31:25 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35687 William William Modular Marble Machine #6: Riser Blocks http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35633 In my previous post, I admitted to being sidetracked most of the week. I have gotten some work done on the marble machine, but it is a spot in the project where it is kind of pointless to post much because the work is kind of boring and mundane.
The parts I am working on are called riser blocks.
These are simply block, like children’s building blocks, that stack on top of one another and interlock using marbles. It is upon this system of stacked blocks that track sections will later be made to sit on top of.

Here is the bulk of the higher blocks. I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is extremely time consuming. There are a certain number of each style of block to accommodate building a variety of layouts. Some are just square blocks of different heights. Some are step blocks that are rectangular with one side higher than the other. However, every block has the same measured grid pattern holes drilled on top and bottom. This allows them to be interlocked using marbles.
All blocks have several things in common though. All are 3.2cm in width. This corresponds with the same measured grid pattern throughout the design, including the base plates. All holes are on the same 3.2cm spacing and 1.6cm from the edges to allow stacking and interlocking without interference. The height of the blocks are all set in units of 2cm. For example, one set of step blocks are two and three unit steps, which are 4cm on one step and 6cm on the other step. This will correspond with a 2cm height of the track pieces and allow easy transition of marbles through track systems.

I was able to get the flat stock cut, but my back made me call it a day before I started on the holes in them today.
In this photo though, you can see the tools I’m using to accomplish the accurate drilling of the holes. I use a marking gauge set at 1.6cm to mark lines on the pieces. The same gauge is then used from the ends to mark the holes closest to the edge. I use extra cut test pieces to get the depth of the holes, which have to be around 8mm to keep the marbles holding things tight enough. I mark and drill holes in my test pieces and check them with the depth gauge that is hard to see between the tape measure and marking gauges. To make sure I get the forstner bit drilling perfectly where I want it to, I punch a divot in each spot using the awl you see closest to the blocks in the photo.
When I finish these blocks, they will be single unit (2cm) planks that go from two hole strips, adding one hole at a time, all the way up to six hole strips. The large square you see are planks that will have twelve hole grid patterns on them.

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If anyone doesn’t understand how all these work together, don’t fret. For now they just look like a bunch of wood with holes in them. When all is done though, it will make perfect sense. I promise a video at that time to demonstrate it all.

]]> Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:17:06 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35633 William William As The Lathe Turns #29: Sidetracked http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35631 I know. I am supposed to be working on a marble machine. I have a little, and I promise a post on that a tad bit later this evening. The thing is though, I have gotten sidetracked. I hate to sound like I’m making excuses, but I’ve had a rough week so far. I have been in a lot of pain. Sometimes the pain gets to me and I’m easily distracted from something I am supposed to be doing. Recently I have learned that turning is a favorite diversional tactic of mine when the pain wears on my mind. So I have a few turnings to show.
I became tied up over last weekend. Then, early in the week, someone I consider a good friend and I exchanged visits between our shops. Upon going to his shop, he gave me some wood. All of it was beautiful, but one certain piece offered a specific challenge to me. It was a piece of cherry with a knot in it that made most of the wood around it seem unusable. I was determined to get something done with it though. The twisting grain in it just intrigued me.
Most of the board could easily be cut into pen blanks. It was that area around that knot I wanted to get at though.


I chopped around it. Some of it shattered into pieces, flying off my saw as tiny projectiles that scared the living daylights out of me. I was able to get some small piece though just around the inner part of the knot. None were long enough for full pen blanks, but I had an idea to add accent pieces to them to give them enough length.
The above photos show the first pen I made with these pieces. The cherry offered some absolutely stunning grain. The middle, lighter colored wood on both side of the metal ring, is maple. The dark rings at each end are ziricote.

My friend also knew someone who needed some drumsticks. As usual too, I went a little overboard with that. I had never turned drumsticks, but seen it as a learning experience. The most important thing I learned was that I can turn them, but if I was a good finish I’m going to have to build a steady rest to cut down on the chatter. That’s alright though. My friend also gave me some bearings to build the steady rest with. That is a future project I will design in my head until I can get to it.
I made drumsticks in several different species.

Oak

Maple

Sapelle

This is mystery wood.
I am calling it mystery wood because I haven’t been able to identify the exact species yet. It looks similar to mahogany, but I’m reluctant to call it that until I am more sure.

Here is a better shot of it. It is hard to see the grain in the drumstick photo. It is straight grain, very hard, and as I said before, an absolutely beautiful piece of wood.
I would highly appreciate any opinions I get about what wood this is.

I then had fun with a screwdriver. This is an old screwdriver. My friend bought it at a flea market and it wasn’t working right. I disassembled this antique with pleasure. I have always loved working on anything mechanical in nature. I got it to working, but the handle was worn out and badly cracked. So I decided to also turn a sapelle handle for it. Upon returning the tool, my friend surprised me by giving it to me. So this goes into my working collection of antique tools. What I mean my usable collection is that I would never own a tool that I can’t use, no matter how old. If I can’t use a tool, I find someone to give it too who prefers collecting. I’m a user, not a collector.

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So, the last couple of days I did get back on track. I wanted to show you all what I was doing though while sidetracked off of what I was supposed to be doing.

]]> Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:12:00 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35631 William William Modular Marble Machine #5: The Crank http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35520 If you’ve been keeping up, we are just about ready to start building the actual pieces to make a marble run. The only thing we have left is a crank handle to operate the pump assembly.

To attach a shaft to the pump, running to the outside of the base box, we are using a half inch dowel. That dowel has a hole drilled the same size as the metal shaft. Then the dowel is split with a band saw down the middle of that hole. This slips over the shaft.
Next we have to pinch the dowel down onto the shaft. To do that we take a block of wood and drill a half inch hole through it. Then we drill and countersink four holes for screws. Then we split the block right down the middle of the half inch hole. Next, drill the hole larger on the countersunk side, just large enough for the four screws to pass through cleanly without catching threads. We want the screws to pull this top piece to the other one. So the threads do not need to catch that piece at all or it won’t tighten.
After all that is done, and the screws are in the block to hold it together, slip the block onto the metal shaft. Put the wooden dowel through the side of the box and slip it over the metal shaft. Now pull the block back over the wooden dowel and tighten it down, pinching the dowel down onto the metal shaft.
This all creates a good enough fit to turn the pump rod. Now, if something jams up enough to completely stop the pump, this clamping system will slip. That is on purpose. You’d rather the rod connection slip than for a jam to destroy some part of the pump, or anything else. A jam is unlikely as long as we do everything else correctly, but you never know. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Now this part is not actually necessary, but I thought the outside of the box looked too plain. So I decided to add a dress up piece with an arrow cut out with the scroll saw. I made this out of a piece of walnut for a nice contrast to the color of the box.

Next, in my opinion, there was just too much play in the wooden dowel shaft as it came through the side of the box, so I added a block to the inside to give it more stability.

Then I made the crank from a piece of sapelle. The crank handle is made out of mystery wood. It is a piece of wood that a friend sent me for pen blanks that I have yet to properly identify, so I’m calling it mystery wood for now.
The reason I used a pen blank for that part is that I just needed a small piece of wood to turn for a crank handle, and this piece looked good to me next to the walnut and sapelle. All the dowels I have are softwood, mostly pine. I did not want to use pine for the crank handle, so I turned a piece for it on the lathe.

Now everything for a functioning feed system and base is finally complete. We can now start on actually building pieces.

]]> Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:25:14 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35520 William William Modular Marble Machine #4: Base Plates http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35509 Yesterday I built the base. Inside the base there will be plates with holes in a grid patterns. With this grid of holes on these plates, it will be possible to place marbles in the holes, place pieces with holes in the bottom of them on top of the marbles, locking things together so nothing moves. It is with this type of system upon which everything else will be possible to build.

First thing today I had to place corner pieces and a tab on the inside of the front for the plates to sit on.

Next I built the feed ramp. This is just an angled ramp that feeds into the top of the marble pump. When building different scenarios with the building block like pieces, the end paths will have to always end feed into the marble feed ramp in the center.

Then pieces of plywood are cut to fit on each side of the feed ramp.
I used plywood here for flatness. Anything other than flat here will cause problems later as the pieces are built up in height.

I had to test all the marbles. The marbles are supposed to be five eighths an inch in diameter. However, not all the marbles are the exact correct size. So, to weed out the larger, misshaped, and otherwise unusable marbles, you test them. I drill a five eighths inch hole through a piece of wood. If a marble fits, even snugly like you see in this photo, then it will work in the machine without causing problems.

Here is an example of a marble that is unusable. It is too large to fit through the hole. Therefore, it will be too large for the machine parts and will hang up in places, causing inevitable jams.

With the marbles tested, and the bad ones weeded out, that gave me my first opportunity to truly test the whole feed and pump assembly as a complete unit. So far, everything seems to be working as it should.

Then for those holes I talked about earlier. Using light pencil lines that can be sanded off later, I marked off a grid for the holes. Then I bored them deep enough into the plates that a marble will sit just a hair over halfway down in the hole. The roughly half of the marble that will stick above the plate will interlock with parts that will go on top of this.

]]> Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:46:09 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35509 William William Modular Marble Machine #3: The Base http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35493 If you seen the pump and elevator column I’ve spent the last couple of days making, then I’m sure you already know that we now need a base to start building this thing upon. So that’s what I decided to start on today.
I spent quite a bit of time debating this morning on what wood to use. I definitely did not want to use plywood for the sides. I took into consideration weight and strength. Whatever I chose though also had to be something I had in sizes that were wide and long enough to work. I finally decided to stick with my old standby, cottonwood.
Cottonwood is strong, yet light. The only problem I have is, if I looked at the nicest pieces, they are kind of plain, and I wanted to use something with some character.

So I got into my “ugly stack”. Let me explain. I separate my cottonwood as I come to it. In one stack is perfect material for large work such as cabinetry. These are straight grain, plain looking, pretty wood. If I’m working on something smaller though that I want character in, I have an ugly stack. This is a stack I’ve made with pieces that have crooked grain, burl material, off color strips glued in, and other deficiencies that make them unsuitable for larger work. For small work though, these ugly pieces, in my opinion, provide the most interesting looks to them.
A good example is the board in this photo, in front; the one I chose for the front of the base. It has burl type material in it. It is situated on the board so that it would look terrible on something larger, but I think it’ll look very nice for the front of the base once it’s finished.
The next problem I had came when I looked at the plans for the base. The plans call for rabbet joints with splines that will later help hold the plates inside of it. This would work just fine, but I just simply do not like rabbeted joints. In my opinion they are as ugly as butt joints and I use something else when I can get away with it.

So I figured it was time to pull out the Stumpy Nubs Box Joint Machine again.

I love this machine. I makes some beautiful, strong, and accurate joints.

Then, just put some glue in between the fingers, clamp all corners tight, double check just to be sure, and you’ve got an easy to square box.

In order to allow the elevator column to sit flush with the back of the base, you have to inset the pump assembly into the back of the base. The easiest way to do this in my opinion is a spiral bit in a palm router.

Then the center of that inset has to be removed to allow the slider in the pump assembly room to move in and out. It extends out almost flush with the outside of the back of the box. You could drill some holes and use a chisel to remove this material. To me though, it’s easier just to put it on the scroll saw and remove it.
If you look closely you may notice I have removed more material than necessary. It will not harm the function of the machine, and it is on the back, so I’m leaving it. However, I thought I’d tell you the reason there is more removed than I originally intended. This was one of those cases where I should have marked my work before starting. I thought I’d eyeball it. This turned out not to be such a good idea. I cut right past where I needed to over to the far side of the recess area. I was almost completely done cutting when I realized what I’d done.

The recess allows the elevator column to be properly positioned against the back while still having room for a functioning pump.

The cutout allows the slider to come out far enough from the pump to be functional.

The bottom of the base is made of plywood. This allows me to use a solid piece for the bottom. I don’t have anything in solid wood large enough for that. For stability I did not want to use glued up material for the bottom.
The bottom is attached with glue and eighteen gauge brad nails.
The bottom has a thirty degree angled bevel cut on all four sides of it. This makes it easier to pick up the whole unit to move from one place to another.

The pump assembly is screwed to the bottom of the base. If you remember, the elevator column is lined up with pins on top of the pump. Between the pins, the back, and the supports we will later put under the bottom of it, the elevator is assured to be in the proper orientation when the machine is in use.

]]> Thu, 11 Apr 2013 01:16:51 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35493 William William Modular Marble Machine #2: The Elevator Column http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35473
Yesterday we built the pump to handle pushing the marbles, but now we need to get them on some kind of upward mobility. Marble machines work from gravity and momentum keeping the marbles moving through it’s course. So they have to start high. So today I built the elevator column. In this first photo, you see the elevator column sitting beside the pump.

I took a closer shot so you can see that we added pins to the top of the pump that line up with holes on the bottom of the elevator column. This assures the elevator gets placed in the exact location every time. If it did not, there is a good chance that marbles could get hung up.
Speaking of things getting hung up, after I built the elevator it was time to test the pump and elevator assembly. I test each and every part as it’s built. Besides being fun, it is a necessity. It is best to catch any problems exactly as they arise instead of later having to isolate a single problem within a conglomerate of parts.

I realized I had a problem with the pump. It worked fine yesterday while feeding one marble at a time. Now though, with the elevator in place, I was able to try feeding a steady stream of marbles by setting up a temporary trough. It would take one marble fine, then would catch the next marble between the piston and lower part of the cover hole and jam up instantly. That just would not do. So I investigated the issue.
What I determined was that the piston was dropping down just a hair too low, allowing following marbles to drop down into the hole on top of the piston before the slider had a chance to move the assembly aside. This was like throwing a monkey wrench into a gear assembly. It simply caught in the sum of parts and jammed.
I thought about scrapping the pump and starting over. Before doing so though, I took a coffee break and thought of an easier solution. I used a micrometer and measured the difference between the marble at it’s lowest point and the top of the slider assembly, and determined that it was only an eighth of an inch difference. So I sliced off an eight inch section of three quarter inch dowel on my table saw sled and carefully glued it in place flush with the bottom of the slider assembly.
Of course this required another extended coffee break while I waited for the glue to set up. I wasn’t sure how it would work and kept thinking of an old saying I remembered from the Emergency Broadcast System, “this is a test, this is only a test”. That scares me. I think I’m showing my age too much remembering these things and my kids haven’t a clue what I’m talking about when I say things like that.

After the glue dried though, luckily, this fixed the issue and I could move on. We were cooking with grease now. Then I wasted about an hour just playing with the whole assembly. No, I don’t play. It’s testing. Yea, that’s the ticket, testing.

So here is the whole assembly of the pump with the elevator column attached. As I showed with the pins earlier, the elevator column is removable. The reason for this is that later, when everything is done, the machine breaks down for all the parts to be stored in the base.

At the top of the elevator column is a turnout that directs the flow of marbles outwards, or inwards in this case, toward the base that all this will reside in. As the marbles reach the top and are pushed outward, the shape of this piece, along with the metal rod you see in the center of it, helps direct the marbles where they need to go.

Here was part of the “testing” process. I like how you can actually see the marbles as they rise through the elevator column.

Here is a closer view of it.

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I got a message yesterday with a question about my using plywood on this machine and about the species of other wood I’ve been using.
Some people who know me or read my blogs know that I have a hatred for plywood. Whenever possible, I use nothing but solid wood. However, as much as I hate to admit it, plywood does have it’s place. In some situations, such as the ones you’ll see during the construction of this project, the stability of plywood just can’t be matched with solid wood. Solid wood moves with weather changes. It doesn’t matter what it may be sealed with. That movement is always present.
For example, you’ll notice the base mount on the elevator column and the top and bottom of the pump are plywood. This is a critical area where the placement of the parts always have to be perfectly the same as they were designed to be. In cases such as this, plywood allows the possibility to make it and rest assured that the wood will not move enough to make that future joining of parts a problem.
You’ll see me using a variety of woods in this project, as I like to do in a lot of my projects. So far, except for the plywood, all the wood I’ve used has been sycamore. I chose it because it is a very stable wood for these moving parts. While it is not as stable as plywood, it has less movement with weather changes than some other wood choices I’ve tried in the past.
I will try to remember to state the species of woods I’m using in future installments of this build.

]]> Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:26:31 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35473 William William Modular Marble Machine #1: The Pump http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35458 Today I started on a new marble machine. While doing the first three machines, I have gotten multiple questions through my email about what goes into these type machines. Well, so far, all of them I’ve done have been other’s designs, the one I’m starting as well. However, I do tweak some things and do design changes as I see fit. That is all part of the fun.
Since I start getting questions after posting any of the machines though, I decided I wanted to do a daily blog on the build of this new one. I can’t promise anything, but I will try my best to post every day that I work on it. In the case that I can’t, I will take photos so I can catch up as soon as possible. So here we go.

The newest project is called a modular marble machine. It is a very interesting design because the elements of it are not fixed. After it is done, the final user can move pieces and build different designs by stacking blocks. It’s much like a child’s building block toys, but only cut and designed to allow marbles to move over, around, and through the pieces.
Before I get started, if anyone would like to read more about the machine, by the man who designed it, Matthius Wandell, here is a link the machine on his website. While you’re there though, if you haven’t seen his site before, check out some more of his designs. This will be the sixth project I have done based on his designs, and I must say, he designs some amazing things.

While working on something like this, I don’t think it is written in stone to make the various parts in any particular order. So I usually work on whatever I feel like working on during a particular day. For this one, I decided I wanted to build the part of it that is most interesting to me, the pump.
As I said before, this machine is modular in design. You arrange the blocks to build any number of designs, limited only by ones imagination. To get the marbles started though, there is a hand crank operated pump that catches the marbles and “pumps” them up to the top, to be released upon the built tracks. I have now build machines with escapement mechanisms and gear lifts, but now something that operated like a pump, so this mechanism interested me greatly.


Here is the pump assembly. It is an open ended box. Inside is a crank shaft made from stiff wire that moved a slider back and forth, while at the same time moves a piston up and down. This grabs a marble from one hole, transfers it to the other hole, where it pushes up on the marble before it. Later, we will be building a shaft in which this pump will stack the marbles upwards for a steady stream of marbles on the tracks.

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Here are photos of the actions of the pump.
There will be a feed trough that feeds a steady stream of marbles to the hole you see the marble in in this photo.

As you turn the crank, the piston will lower as the slider move towards the other hole, carrying the marble with it.

The marble comes out the other hole and the slider and piston move to catch the next marble from the first hole.

It catches the next marble same as the first.

Brings it under and over to the ejection hole.

And pushes the first marble upwards.

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All of this will become more clear as we progress through the rest of the machine.
If you’re impatient and want to see a better idea of it now though, here is a video made by Mr. Wandell about the building of the pump. The video is close to twenty four minutes long, but it is worth watching if you are really interested in seeing exactly how the pump’s inner workings operate.

]]> Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:51:20 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35458 William William As The Lathe Turns #28: Squaring Solution - Shop Made Pen Blank Squaring Tool http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35438 If you read the last blog installment, you know I was having a problem squaring the pen blanks to the tube inserts. I don’t like the barrel trimmers. The idea is a good one, but I just didn’t like the performance of the one I have. So I had an idea for a different approach.
I have seen some jigs to be used with disk sanders. I have a disk sander. However, I keep course paper on it for another purpose in my shop. The disk sander idea would involve either setting it up with finer paper, which would slow me down when I use it to hog off material on some other projects I use it one, or constantly changing paper all the time, which is a major hassle. So, going on that general sanding idea, I had an idea to go a different route.
I have learned that, when wanting to get things perfectly square and concentric at the same time, there is no better tool for the job than the lathe itself. So my idea involved sanding the blanks square on the lathe.

Here is the tool. To make it I took a length of quarter inch steel rod. I chucked it up into the morse taper end of the pen mandrel set and used sandpaper with the lathe running to get it sanded down just a hair, so the seven millimeter tubes would slip all the way across snugly, but easily at the same time. Next I drilled a quarter inch hole into a small square of wood and used epoxy to glue it onto the shaft. Once the epoxy set, I turned the block of wood down round, and perfectly straight with the shaft. Then I took two pieces of sandpaper, eight grit and two twenty grit, and sandwiched them between two pieces of wood so I could use the drill press to put clean holes though the center. I then epoxied a piece of the paper to each side of the wooden block. 
This completed the tool. I also coated the outer edge of the rounded wood with CA glue. This wasn’t absolutely necessary. I figured it would prevent some wood movement though. It couldn’t hurt.
Now for using it.

The tool simply slips into the morse taper end chuck part of the pen mandrel. For the purpose I’m using it for, I found that simply hand tightening the chuck holds the tool plenty tight enough for what I need to do. You can flip the tool either way depending on if you wish to use eighty grit or two twenty grit. I’ll usually use the finer grit. I figure if a blank is severely out of square, or extremely hard, I may have a need for the courser grit.

Then, with the lathe running at it’s slowest speed, so you don’t accidentally take off too much, slip the pen blank over the end of the shaft and touch it lightly to the paper. I suggest going slow and letting the abrasive do the work. This will assure a nicer finish on the end, extend the life of the paper, and taking your time allows you to keep a close eye on things and not sand too much away.
In the above photo, you see the back end of the pen I made yesterday with the gap in it. As a good test run, I decided to take a chance on the tool, since I was sure it would work, and fix the gap in this pen. I used a punch to knock the clip and cap off the end of it so I could give it a try. The worst that could happen would be for me to mess the pen up. If it did, it wouldn’t be the first time, and most probably won’t be the last.

Luckily, I did not have to scrap a pen today. IT WORKED!!!

If you like this pen blank squaring tool, you can build your own and send the money to….......
I’m just joking. I think this is a good idea and would be flattered if anyone likes it enough to copy it.

]]> Sun, 07 Apr 2013 22:08:20 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/greasemonkeyredneck/blog/35438 William William