home made micro lathe

grizzley.com has an inexpensive lathe that accepts a hand drill. It’s like fifty dollars, however, you may be able to pull an idea on how to build one from it.

-- The mark of a good carpenter is not how few mistakes he makes, but rather how well he fixes them.

Don’t do it. Chucks won’t work on drill lathes and you’ll burn out drills
anyhow. Get yourself a real lathe and cut off the bed if you want to
save space.

You can get a used lathe for $50-$100 easily enough with a 1 1/8”
headstock spindle that will take lots of good quality chucks.

Razorbak, for what you are desiring to do, yes you can indeed make a lathe of sorts using an old variable speed drill. You would need to make yourself a wooden contraption to hold your hand drill steady and then make a little trigger depressor, once again all out of wood. This could all be made out of soft pine shelving board or either 3/8” – 1/2” , plywood.

The trigger depressor could be as simple as piece of wood bridging across the trigger and held in place on one end by a small machine bolt and a wing nut. The wing nut could be tightened to obtain higher end speeds or loosened to obtain lower end speeds on this variable drill.

Use your imagination in creating this jig to hold your drill and to make a simple tailstock to accept a mandrel later.

Or, you could purchase a simple small electric motor and design some sort of mandrel to aid in sanding and finishing multiple rings at once.

If you could create some sort of rubber bushing about 6” slightly under the diameter of your rings, you could very easily customize yourself an expandable rubber mandrel that would securely hold the rings in place, no more pressure than you will need to exert in sanding and finishing such a small project. Have a stiff 1/4”-5/16” threaded bolt through the center of this rubber shaft that could be compressed by simply tightening the nut along the bolt. The compression of course would create an expansion of the rubber’s diameter and there you have it….a custom expandable mandrel to readily accept about one dozen rings for sanding.

As far as worrying about burning out drills, you will not have too worry about that to much, drills are more apt to burn out when you place great deals of torque on their gear housing. You will not be doing such a thing with the projects you have in store. Furthermore, i have seen some excellent lathe work come out of an older gentleman’s woodshop that all ever used for a wood lathe was the device mentioned above.

IT was all wrought with a 3/8” inch variable speed, black and decker drill setup to serve as his lathes headstock. Hey…ingenuity…it works..

He created absolutely beautiful pieces using a router in consolidation with his lathe turnings to produce majestical pieces of furniture.

Using your imagination and chatting around could help you develop just the system that you need.

Chris

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com

i would recommend using one of the pneumatic drums that will fit your rings on a drill press. Slip your ring on it, expand the drum to hold it tight, then turn on your drill press and sand.

-- San Diego, CA

Yeah there you go, i thought about that as well, i was just thinking they might not manufacture these pneumatic drums in diameters small enough for rings. But they certainly would work, what i had in mind, when i was typing the above post. I had seen some rubber solid with holes through it as well and would think that might work as well thus the reasoning for posting same.

Chris

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com

Do ya have a drill press? If so, you could make a stepped mandril that would fit the chuck. Set the steps for the appropriate ring sized. The DP will be a bunch quieter and will run for longer lengths of time without harm.
Bill

-- bill@magraphics.us

Thanks for all the suggestions. The hobby lathe from Grizzley.com is a neat little setup just the size i was thinking of but the head to hold the work piece uses spikes to hold the piece which wouldn’t work.
I like the idea of the pneumatic drum but a quick search only seems to show 1 1/2 as the smallest size and I need to be between 1/2 and 1 1/2.
There are some solid rubber drums that come in different sizes but they don’t compress enough to fit the size ranges between 1/2, 3/4, 1 and 1 1/4 that the drums come in. I may try the little drum i have for my dremel and see if i can make some cuts in the rubber to let it compress and squeeze out the sides more.
Chris, I did think about making some rubber mandrels and even bought some rubber stoppers in a couple of size ranges with the idea of running a screw/bolt through them with some washers to compress it. The problem I quickly found was that of getting the bolt EXACTLY through the middle through the whole thing. Just a little off gives it a wobble that makes it useless for the degree of control i need. I also considered using an actual ring sizing mandrel and putting a rubber coating on it to let it grip the ring with simple pressure and friction. But once again, I don’t have the means to drill a hole in the exact center of the mandrel to avoid any wobble.

-- Turning good wood into even better wood jewelry. DWWoodCreations.com

Gotcha, yeah- ” been there, done that”, rubber is not cooperative when attempting to bore holes through it. I didn’t really consider this element when mentioning the usage of rubber.

Razorbak, the spur dead center you are making reference to in that wood lathe from grizzly will easily come out and you could replace it with various attachments, centers, mandrels, etc; It is not permanently fixed in the headstock if that was your concerns.

I wonder how an undersized, tapered wood mandrel would work, undersized about 1/8” smaller than your diameters needed and then coated with an approximate 1/8” of the silicone epoxy mold building putty. I have used this epoxy to create some impressive pieces and if recollection serves me correctly it will bond readily and well to the wood undersurface. After the cure, simply align between centers on the lathe and turn to a very smooth surface with a skew chisel. You could then simply slide the rings along this slightly tapered silicone mandrel until it reaches an area where it is taut.

With the high-friction composition of the silicone, this friction fit would not allow the rings to slip under normal sanding and finishing pressures. Of course your taper would not have to be too aggressive but very subtle to allow for multiple rings to be placed upon it at once. May work???

Or you could purchase you an expanding mandrel similar to this one that i use and there are guys out there that make custom expandable mandrels to whatever size you are needing.

Hope this information may help.

Chris

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com

These sanding drums here might work and you could use them in your drill press, sizes: 1/2, 3/4, and 1”

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com

That expandable mandrel is exactly what i was thinking of but couldn’t figure out what it was called or what to search under. I will definately check on those to see if they will work for what I need. As for those drums, I was just not sure how soft the rubber was and if for example the 1/2 drum could compress and bulge out enough to cover the ring sizes up to the next drum which is 3/4.

-- Turning good wood into even better wood jewelry. DWWoodCreations.com

Darn – checked on those expandable mandrels and don’t think they would really work, at least not without having a seperate one for each quarter ring size. It doesn’t look like they are really meant to expand all that much.
So far about the only thing that looks like it will work would be to get a piece of wood about 2 inch across and around 12 inches long, drill a hole in the base of it to secure a screw or bolt and then have the piece turned on a lathe using the bolt as the turning point and then have it carved/sanded into a conical shape aroung 1/2 inch on one end and expanding to 1 1/2 on the other end. That way can be sure that it will turn true and not have a wobble once it is attached to a drill. Just have to find a local wood worker to do it for me because I don’t have a lathe or any wood turning tools.

-- Turning good wood into even better wood jewelry. DWWoodCreations.com

1) The drums – yeah i thought the same thing, they leave a large gap between the various sizes available, oh well worth a try

2) The expandable mandrel – same issue not enough variables worked into the design to serve your purpose is it although you can have them custom made it would cost a fortune to have a collection of them for your purposes

3) Razorbak if you can draw me a full schematic drawing of this piece you are desiring to have made out of wood, i can make it for you on my lathe. I can make one for you that i am certain would work and wouldn’t charge you anything to do it.

All i would need from you is a detailed blueprint drawn up, either mailed to me or emailed containing detailed dimensions of this piece with the appropriate taper that you are looking for along its longitudinal axis. Just give me the diameter needed like every inch along its longitudinal axis and i can create the taper from there.

Now how are you planning on using this, in a drill press? I understand exactly what you are referring to and the picture you have in your mind’s eye for the center bolt or ‘steel pin’ or ‘rod’ protruding that you could chuck in your drill. Then maybe having one on the other end that would allow you to place it in a pocket clamped inside of a drill table vise, to prevent run out and movement when sanding. Is this somewhat along the lines of what you had in mind?

Now the only slight dilemma is that i do not have a solid piece of hardwood at present that meets the measurements that you provided earlier. I could glue up two pieces of grade A1 white oak and get 1.5” diameters. The glue that i use, i do not think you would ever have a problem with that ever coming loose, guaranteed and of course the taper would be about as smooth as a baby’s bottom when i finish with it. So i could certainly do this.

If you could simply reimburse me for the small shipping fee associated with shipping it to you when finished. Heck i would not even charge you for this but i ship stuff all the time and cannot afford the large debt incurred if i did not get reimbursed.

Let me know what you think.

oh by the way, no worries, i really would love to make it for you. It’s not work to me at all, it is my passion. I love doing stuff like this and furthermore i love to assist and help other woodworkers.

Chris

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com

When I have done rings of any size I just slip them on a tappered dowel. I have seen many home made expanding or jam type holders that would work either on a drill chuck, drill press or a mandral on a motor. Never try to buy solutions.
MIKE

-- See pictures on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/44216106@N07/ And visit my Facebook page - facebook.com/MTEnterprises

Thank you Chris, I will take you up on that offer. I am sending you a private message and really do appreciate the help alot.

-- Turning good wood into even better wood jewelry. DWWoodCreations.com

check message inbox,

Chris

-- Chris Harrell - custom callmaker "Quacky Calls" Eastern NC. http://www.quackycalls.com