Making awls from odds and ends...

 Just a quick post on my latest experiment, that being making awls from bits of wood left over from other projects and old drill bits.

They are simple enough to make, just take an old drill bit, and cut a length off it, then sharpen one end to a fine point, then all you need is a wooden handle, as I have a lathe I've used it to make my handles, but you could just as easily make them by hand.

Here's the ones I've made so far - 

Turned out well I feel

Not much to them really, all three are made from scrap bits and pieces I had in my workshop, I recorded a video on how I made them, which you can watch on youtbe.

Video -

Thanks for reading / watching.

Homemade shear scraper ... ...

I've had my lathe for a while now and although I have enough tools to keep me busy I'm always looking for new ones (can't help it, I'm a bloke) the trouble is that some of the more interesting tools can cost a bit, and as I try to save cash where I can, I can't really justify buying a £20 chisel, and that's actually cheap, some of the more expensive turning systems can cost over £100 !

But all is not lost, like a lot of wood turners I have made my own tools from scratch, adapted old tools into new tools, this saves money and gives you a better understanding of how things work.

So bearing that in mind I thought I'd make a shear scraper, now if you're wondering what one is have a look here - Robert Sorby Shear Scraper (opens in new window) this one is a small one, but even so it's £20 that could be better spent elsewhere.

This however cost less than £8 and I can make 2 handles and probably about 10 extra cutting bits, and I can make them to suit me, so in the long run I'll save quite a lot.

My newly built shear scraper -

Surprisingly easy to make, with the right tools.

This works well, but the cutting bit needs tweaking, I've only ground an edge on it to see how it feels to use it.

Close up of the cutting bit - 

Needs tweaking.

The handle is made by wrapping some natural fibre string round the metal and sealing it with glue  (I used Mod Podge on the last ones, this time I used pva) like I did for my Oland tools, I quite like the feel of the string, and I seem to be able to get a better grip on the handle compared to wooden handles.

To make this type of tool does require a little more work, and you'll need a tap and a tap wrench for threading the hole for securing the cutter, the shaft is a piece of steel bar, which you can buy from places like B&Q (my bit cost £5 and will make 2 tools)

Obviously you'll need something to make the cutter from, Ebay is your friend as it's about the only place I've found tool steel at (what I consider to be) a cheap price.

I got this piece for 99p (plus £2 postage) it's 1inch diameter, a good size for making cutting bits for the scraper.

Tool steel - 

It's best to use an angle grinder to cut this.

I already had the tap and die set, and I've always got nuts and bolts lying about, as it turns out cutting the steel was easy with an angle grinder, I wouldn't even bother trying to cut it with a hacksaw, you'll be there for hours.

Basically you need a slice a few millimetres thick (3 or 4mm should do) and you'll also need to drill a hole in it, which in theory sounds easy right ? I found it is not so, none of my drill bits would even make a dent in it, which resulted in much swearing.

The slice of steel for the cutting bit - 

Not as even as should have been, but it'll do.

And look I managed to drill a hole in it - 

It's meant to be off centre.

In the end it was my multi-tool and a small grinding bit that prevailed over the steel, I suspect it was heat related, by that I mean the drill bits weren't producing enough heat to soften the metal and cut into it, this stuff is very hard.

You will need to flatten a section of the steel rod, you can use square rod, but I wanted round, I used my bench grinder to make a flat section on one end, this makes a nice seat for the cutter to sit on.

Ready for the cutter - 

This flat section will house the cutter.

Once you have the end prepared you need to drill a hole in it and then use the tap to thread the hole, this will give you a good secure way of fixing the cutter.

Now when you need to drill a hole in any type of steel before you start drilling, mark where you want the hole and use a centre punch to make a small pit in the steel, this will make sure the drill bit goes where you want it to and not all over the place, and if possible use a post drill as this will make sure the hole is straight.

Centre punch (one of many I seem to have) - 

This one is quite new.

Basically you put the pointed end of the punch onto the mark you've made and give the other end a good thump with a hammer, easy peasy, then you can go ahead and drill the hole, try to get it in the middle of the piece of steel you're using as a shaft for the tool, another thing to remember is that when using a thin drill bit you need a quite high drill speed setting, and for larger drill bits you use a slower speed.

Hole ready to be threaded - 

I used an m5 tap for this.

The tap and tap wrench - 

Try and get a good quality tap for this.

Using the tap - 

All done.

There's a trick to using a tap and die set, you don't want to try and make the thread in one hit, you will most likely snap the tap in the hole, and they don't come out easy once that's happened. Take it slow, start turning the tap until it bites, you'll know when this has happened as it will get harder to turn, then turn it slowly, when it gets really tight, turn it about quarter to half a turn backwards, then start turning it the right way again (turn it the same way you would if you were doing up a bolt) and keep doing this until you've got the thread you want.

By turning the tap a little bit in the opposite way every few turns will clear any metal in the hole, it also helps keep the part of the tap that cuts the metal clear, just remember the tortoise and the hare story, slow and steady wins the race, and you'll get a better thread.

Then take your bolt, and a spring washer (this help keep things from undoing) and fix the cutter to the end, and that's about it,all you need to do now is grind the cutter in a way that suits the jobs you want to do, and if you get enough steel you can always make a variety of cutting bits.

The cutter fixed in place - 

Not the neatest of jobs, but it works.

I plan to make some different shaped bits for the scraper, and with the other section of steel rod I'll make another tool, which I'm going to put a bend in so that I can hollow out ball shapes, that way I'll have 2 tools that I can use, with out having to mess about changing cutters all the time, so really I've made more than 2 tools, for less than £10, saving a few quid, can't be bad.

If you're interested in the other tools I've made for wood turning here a link to the post, to save you searching - Oland tools (opens in new window)

Thanks for reading.

It's about time ... ...

Been a bit thin on posts of late, apologies for that, although in my defence I have been busy. I've been practising my turning skills (or maybe trying to actually get some)

Also been trying to think of ideas, seems inspiration doesn't always want to work, but I'm getting there. You may or may not like to know that I have a shop now, although I've actually had it for a couple of weeks, the reason I haven't announced it is because I needed time to figure it all out, still not sure on some of the finer points, but I guess I'll be able to iron those out as I go along.

The shop has a variety of things, and although it's small at the moment I will be adding new things on a regular basis, at least that's the plan :-) it has some of the things I've blogged about in it, and some stuff I haven't, and I'll be adding some of my turned wooden objects, most of which you won't have seen :-)

My latest turning exploits have been interesting, I have a new chuck for the lathe which makes things easier, and does hold some possibilities for some interesting projects.

Here's some of my latest stuff -  

Most are prototypes :-)

I'm most pleased with the small pot on the far left, the pot is a memory box, the idea being that you place a memory in it, a lock of your child's hair, or their umbilical cord, or some other memory an item that reminds you of a day out perhaps ? the design is intentionally plain because it's the memory inside that holds the magic ;-)

The memory pots will be available on an as and when I make them basis, and they will all be slightly different in design, but still plain, I've also been experimenting with different finishes, the memory pot and the largest pot (far right) have been finished with honing oil, which is a wood turners polish, it goes on very evenly and can be polished to quite a high shine, even makes plain pine interesting (the pots above are plain pine by the way)

The last thing I made, before my lathes drive belt took a turn for the worse was a small birch pot with a lid, not to worry though I have 2 new drive belts on the way.

Here's the small birch pot -

It's a nice pot, even if I do say so myself, one of my better ones.

The pot is just under 7cm in height and just under 6cm wide, the pot and lid are all turned from one piece of birch and then finished with honing oil.

Some more pictures - 

The grain is quite subtle.

The lid has some interesting patterns on it.

This pot was on sale in my new shop, and it sold pretty quickly, which was nice, you can find my shop at ---> www.the-shed-and-beyond.co.uk (opens in new window) as I mentioned I'm keeping it small for now, but I will add new stuff as I go along, so look out for new turned objects and other things, and if you have any questions / feedback feel free to to use the blog or the contact section of the shop to ask, I'm hoping to use the blog to show of new stuff that I will then put in the shop.

And lastly I'm looking into moving this blog (and the others) elsewhere at some point, I will let everyone know though.

Thanks for reading.

Homemade mini lathe ... ...

In my wood turning pursuits I've discovered that having a smaller lathe might be handy for, well smaller work, I plan to make my daughter a dolls house and no doubt I shall want some tiny spindles, which might be a little difficult on my lathe.

I've tried to turn very small things on it before, but it's a bit large and in all honesty it's designed for turning rather large bits of wood, so I set about looking for a cheap mini lathe, they are quite expensive for what they are, so then I thought about making one, and after looking at a few homemade mini lathes I realised I had just about everything I needed to make a small lathe.

Here's the power plant for the lathe -

I knew I'd find a use for this :-)

It's what's left of an old bench grinder, I modified it a few years ago to run a sharpening stone for a while, then I got a drill to power it and built a proper system for sharpening things, so the old bench grinder was left on a shelf, until now that is.

As it's an old bench grinder it has 2 speeds, off and on :-) it spins some where around 2000 rpm to 3000 rpm (give or take) it handles the load when turning a piece of wood quite well, and doesn't get too hot, I may at a later date make some kind of speed control for it.

I spent some time considering how to go about making a usable head stock, and tail stock, in the end I decided to use old chucks from a broken cordless drills as the head and tail stocks.

A bit battered from removing it, but it still works.

The end of the drive shaft was ground down using a file while it was spinning to keep it centred, then I threaded it with a tap and die set and basically screwed the chuck onto the shaft, in much the same way as it was fixed to the drill, this makes for a very easy system for changing the way you mount wood to the lathe, you can use a threaded screw or you could trim down one end of the wood and fix it straight into the chuck.

I've basically tried to make a smaller version of my lathe, which can turn wood up to a metre in length and about 50cm in width, the mini lathe can go to about 30cm in length and about 10cm in width, I've already used it to turn a couple of things :-) it worked better than I expected.

The tail stock is built to slide back and forth, which makes it easy to accommodate different lengths of wood, it's kind of how my larger lathe works.

The tail stock -

It's a bit hacky, but it works :-)

You can see the idea, the tail stock slides back and forth along the 2 bars, and is clamped down with a bolt and a wing nut for easy adjustment, it doesn't look very pretty, but it doesn't matter as long as it works.

I've used another old chuck for the tail stock, I did this because it means I can use various things as centres, in the picture I've poached the revolving centre of my big lathe. The 2 bars that the tail stock slides on are as centred as possible, I used a pendulum to find the right line from the head stock.

The tail stock chuck -

Looks a little odd, but does the job.

I've fixed this chuck the same way as the head stock chuck, just threaded it onto the threaded bar, and used bolts to keep it from moving. The chuck is fixed to an L shaped bracket, which I thought would be okay, but it turns out it had a little too much flex in it, so I added the white coloured brackets to give it a little more strength.

As I mentioned I poached the revolving centre from my big lathe for this, but I made an adapter so that I can easily remove the centre and fix it back onto the big lathe should I need to.

The revolving centre - 

A little large for this lathe, but it'll do.

I did originally make a dead centre for the lathe, but I found this to be a little problematic because it moved too much in the end of the wood, this might be down to a few things, but I figured using this centre was better anyway, turns out it is much better, although if it's not tight enough into the wood it makes a horrendous squeaking noise :-/ This centre is designed to just push on and off a peg, so I made the adapter the same way, out of an old 8mm socket, mainly because is was just about the right size to start with, the socket is meant for using in a cordless drill, so it's ideal for this and when I need to use the centre elsewhere I just need to tap it off with a small hammer.

The clamp for the tail stock is just a bolt and a wing nut, I used this as a way to make things easy to move about, my big lathe uses a similar method, all be it a much larger nut and bolt.

The clamp -

Simples :-)

You can see the ends of the white brackets I used for extra strength, I will at some point weld these to the other bracket, although at the moment there is a certain amount of spring in the brackets which means that when the clamp is tight it works a little like a spring washer and keeps it from undoing :-) so I might just leave it.

Here's a picture of the tail stock as it was originally -

Probably a little weak for this, hence extra brackets.

Here's the original centre as well -

Just a bit of threaded bar with a point ground in.

And here it is, drum roll please ;-) the Acme mini lathe -

Not pretty, but it works, bit like me ;-)

There are some things I want to add to it, for a start a tool rest, at the moment I'm using a block of wood, I'd rather have some kind of adjustable rest, but it'll do for now. I also need to work out an effective way to clamp it down to a work bench or even to the bed of my big lathe, but that's all for the future, at the moment things are screwed down and bolted but I will probably weld it where I can for extra strength, I want it to last as I have plans to use it quite a lot, for small work, like the light pulls I made to test it out.

The light pull -

Not a great picture.

Another light pull, made of Pear wood.

 My wife remarked that she didn't like the small plastic ends of the light cords in the bathroom so I made these to test out the lathe, one is made from part of an old towel rail and the other from a small piece of Pear wood, nothing special but it would have been a little hard to turn it on the big lathe, the light pulls are about 8cm long and about 1.5cm to 2.5cm thick, I could have turned them on the big lathe, but the tool rest would need some modification so as I could get it into the right place for turning small pieces, which to be honest I couldn't be bothered to do, and besides making this mini lathe was more fun ;-)

I've now added a rough tool rest to the mini lathe, and discovered the tail stock has a little too much play in it, so more tweaking is needed, I recorded a short video of the lathe working, it's quieter than I thought, I'm also using one of my haomemade Oland tools as well, can't be bad.

Thanks for reading.