My New Toy! A Mini Wood Lathe!
Today Harbor Freight had a 25% off coupon. I used mine to buy a mini wood lathe. My best friend was with me and he bought a set of chisels for me as my birthday gift. I'm so excited, and already very covered in saw dust and wood shavings.
Naturally, I tried to just jump in, I mean I've used my itty bitty Dremmel lathe before. I made a HUGE mess of a scrap of 2×4. Then I came inside at my friend's urging, watched a few Jet videos on YouTube, and went back out to the garage determined to make a honey serving stick.
My best friend cut two 10" pieces of 2×2 poplar on his miter saw and I loaded one up. The idea was we'd each do one. I was so excited when I sucessfully turned my stick into a perfect dowel. Then, I cut the grooves for the honey at the bottom. All was going relatively well, except that the little chisel from the Dremmel lathe was over heating. I kept taking breaks. Then I shaped the main body of the honey dipper with relative ease. After shaping the ball bit on the end of the honey grooves and sanding the entire piece, I decided that the honey grooves should be deeper.
I should have left well enough alone. The little Dremmel chisel was a bit warped and when I tried to deepen the narrow honey grooves, the wood split and blew up into a big mess. I tried to save my honey dipper as a 3 groove dipper instead of a 5 groove dipper, but it exploded again. Clearly, this mini chisel was bad news, but the 1/8" equivalent chisel that came in the big set was just too wide for honey grooves.
I ended up experimenting with other types of chisels in the set to make thin honey grooves in the handle of the remaining mess. I've gotten something I'm relatively satisfied with and I'll try again tomorrow to make a proper honey dipper. I also need to make a dowel bit for an Andean Wool Winder for plying yarn on my spinning wheel.
And yes, I'm that cool. I make my own spinning tools from wood, use them to spin wool that I may or may not have raised on the hoof/rabbit paw, knit that handspun yarn into clothes, and then look damn sexy in it.
Today Harbor Freight had a 25% off coupon. I used mine to buy a mini wood lathe. My best friend was with me and he bought a set of chisels for me as my birthday gift. I'm so excited, and already very covered in saw dust and wood shavings.
Naturally, I tried to just jump in, I mean I've used my itty bitty Dremmel lathe before. I made a HUGE mess of a scrap of 2×4. Then I came inside at my friend's urging, watched a few Jet videos on YouTube, and went back out to the garage determined to make a honey serving stick.
My best friend cut two 10" pieces of 2×2 poplar on his miter saw and I loaded one up. The idea was we'd each do one. I was so excited when I sucessfully turned my stick into a perfect dowel. Then, I cut the grooves for the honey at the bottom. All was going relatively well, except that the little chisel from the Dremmel lathe was over heating. I kept taking breaks. Then I shaped the main body of the honey dipper with relative ease. After shaping the ball bit on the end of the honey grooves and sanding the entire piece, I decided that the honey grooves should be deeper.
I should have left well enough alone. The little Dremmel chisel was a bit warped and when I tried to deepen the narrow honey grooves, the wood split and blew up into a big mess. I tried to save my honey dipper as a 3 groove dipper instead of a 5 groove dipper, but it exploded again. Clearly, this mini chisel was bad news, but the 1/8" equivalent chisel that came in the big set was just too wide for honey grooves.
I ended up experimenting with other types of chisels in the set to make thin honey grooves in the handle of the remaining mess. I've gotten something I'm relatively satisfied with and I'll try again tomorrow to make a proper honey dipper. I also need to make a dowel bit for an Andean Wool Winder for plying yarn on my spinning wheel.
And yes, I'm that cool. I make my own spinning tools from wood, use them to spin wool that I may or may not have raised on the hoof/rabbit paw, knit that handspun yarn into clothes, and then look damn sexy in it.