Wooden Rockets

Made these wooden rockets on my mini Carba-Tech lathe (which I now have 3 of). The two colored rockets are made of colorwood from Rutland Plywood with walnut wings, and the tall one is cherry wood, with walnut fins also. I tried this several time on how to cut for the fins. A few went into the stove after they were ruined. Cutting the fins were hard at first. I first cut the fin grooves on the square, on my table saw and then turned them. Dangerous at best. But this allowed the turning process to tearout the grooves. Then I deceided to cut the grooves for the fins after turing. I made a jig for my table saw and a marking line to see where to cut the #2, 3, and 4th grooves. I added a stop block to my table saw to only let the jig go so far onto the saw blade. Final sanded the rocket after the grooves were sawed. Then I used the saw blade to mark out the round for the fin on a thin board of the wood that I was going to use. I cut the round out and inserted it into the saw cut. Minor adjustments are made to make sure that the fin goes into the cut correctly. Then I hand drawed the first fin out as I wanted it, cut it out and made the final adjustments to it. When I was happy with that first fin, I cut the others. 3 fins are easier, than 4 but 4 can be done and made to set nice also with a little hand work on the bottoms of the fins. I sprayed all these rockets with 2-3 coats of conversion varnish. They are very smooth and are eye turners. However, not good toys for the young. the fins are the width of the saw blade kerf. So easy to break off. Mine are setting the shelf. I want to make one that looks like a sub torpedo. Big enough for a pen and pencil set for on a desk…...

-- Hacksaw007