Indexing feature???

[John Terefenko]

OK I have a Jet 1220vs midi lathe with an indexing feature. I am in the process of making a router jig from John Lucas plans and I want to be able to do some fluting and other features using the indexing gadget. My problem Is I have no idea how it works in conjunction with what I am working on. I know how to engage and disengage. But I have no idea how to really use this. It is a 24 spot wheel. The first things I would like to use it on is some fluting on some pens. Being this is a small diameter blank is the wheel small enough to do fluting work with??? What are some formulas when doing this kind of work??? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

PS: any photos you would like to throw in would be appreciated.

 

[Bill Boehme]

It seems to me that this is a terribly small project to do fluting especially if you have not tried it before. I have not done any fluting on the lathe either, but I have in flat woodworking and the principle is about the same. The fixture guides the router, the router is adjusted to control the depth, and the indexer holds the turning to the desired rotation angle. I have not seen John's fixture, but if it is like some others that I have seen, it may have provisions for moving the router on a simple curved path that roughly follows the end to end curve of the turning.

For pens you would need a very small router -- something like a Dremel tool with a router base. For a 24 position indexing wheel, you can have 4, 6, 8, 12, or 24 flutes.

 

[ray hampton]

Bill , on a pen with 12 or 24 flutes, will the flutes be big enough to see ?12 flutes will be 30 degrees on center and 24 flutes will be 15 degrees if my math is right

 

[John Terefenko]

It seems to me that this is a terribly small project to do fluting especially if you have not tried it before. I have not done any fluting on the lathe either, but I have in flat woodworking and the principle is about the same. The fixture guides the router, the router is adjusted to control the depth, and the indexer holds the turning to the desired rotation angle. I have not seen John's fixture, but if it is like some others that I have seen, it may have provisions for moving the router on a simple curved path that roughly follows the end to end curve of the turning.

For pens you would need a very small router -- something like a Dremel tool with a router base. For a 24 position indexing wheel, you can have 4, 6, 8, 12, or 24 flutes.

Hi Bill

John's jig is basically a platform that the router can slide from one end of the blank to the other and the depth of cut is controlled by a fence that the base of the router runs against. You move the entire jig in and out on the ways of the lathe.

I believe the size of the router does not matter, only the bit used. Right now what I am attempting to do is make a series of flutes in and around a pen blank to allow either me to add some inlace or some inlay material of some sort. Now you will probably say you can construct the blank before you put it on the lathe. True to a point. I want to be able to make the flutes come to points on the ends much like a pool cue set of points but on both ends. So the material inlayed is tapered. If that makes sense.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around where to set each indexed point. If I want to make 4 flutes in a pen blank how many spaces do I turn the wheel to get each flute evenly spaced all around the blank is what I am after. I will work out the details on using the router. What is the formula to determine this concept??? Hope this is clear as mud🙂 Hope I am using the right terminology.

 

[Joe Greiner]

In answer to your first question, the diameter of the wheel has no relation to the diameter of the workpiece. The index merely sets the angle of rotation for holding the work.

With 24 positions available, divide 24 by the number of features to establish the spacing - for best results, require an integer value. Integer factors of 24 are 2, 2, 2, and 3. Any multiple of those will work; e.g. 3 features, 8 spaces; 4 features, 6 spaces. For something as small as a pen, 6 features at 4 spaces is probably the most dense I'd attempt.

If you want the flutes to vanish near the ends, i.e. tapered, either the blank or the router guide fence should taper or follow a curve. For compatibility with the fence, the router plate would best have two contact points against the fence, so that it doesn't wobble. Make the two contact points at equal distances from the cutter; this isn't exactly necessary, but if they're not, it gets complicated in a hurry.

You're right about the size of the router being irrelevant, as long as you have enough real estate for everything.

 

[hockenbery]

John,

With 24 indexes you divide them evenly for what you want.
For 4 flutes divide 4 into 24 you get 6. use every 6 th. pin. 0, 6, 12, 18, 24(which is the same as 0)

One way to mark the flutes is lock in an arbitrary pin. Mark, flute or whatever.
Unlock the pin turn the wheel skipping 5 holes and lock in the next one.
When. you get back to hole you started in you are done.

Generally I like to work with the wood and put a feature in th middle of flute or in the middle of spot between flutes.
If flutes meet at a point between them i generally try to put any defects in the bottoms of the flutes to avoid tearout along the ridges.
One defect is easy, two defects I sort of balance as best I can.

If your wheel is numbered then I would use pins 6,12,18,24. To get the blank lined up, I would lock the pin in 6. Then loosen the pen mandrel and rotate the blank to line it up. The I would tighten the mandrel, unlock the index pin. Rotate the blank to each of the other 3 index spots do a quick visual check to see what will be in a flute.

Say tomorrow you want to try 6 flutes. It is the same as above but you use holes. 0,4,8,12,16,20,24( same as 0)
Now you skip 3 holes every time.

Hope this helps. It is lot easier to do that to describe.

All index wheels that I know of have three. This allows you to mark and drill the leg holed for a 3 legged stool
I don't know of any wheels that have 5 or 7 as possible division. These a more fun than 6 or 8.

Have fun,
Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

The reason that I mentioned the Dremel tool is that they have some really small veining bits and I don't know if you could find a bit for large router that would have a fine tip other than something like a 45° chamfer bit.

Joe, did you do a typo on the multiplication factors or am I misunderstanding something?

John, it is basically what whole numbers multiplied together give you 24 or another way of looking at it is how many times will a number "gozinta" 24 (if you remember the Beverly Hillbillies, Jethro was the math whiz kid who could do "timzes" and "gozintas" such as, two gozinta twenty-four twelve times, three gozinta twenty-four eight times, four gozinta twenty-four six times). So, if you want six flutes, then every fourth hole in the index wheel is used.

The biggest problem with verbal explanations is that sometimes it is hard to visualize what things will look like while reading an explanation. Joe's explanation for how the flutes taper off to points is right-on, but it might be hard to visualize at first. If you practice on some scrap pieces then maybe things will start to click in your mind as you see how the flute tapers to a sharp point as the router bit moves away from the piece.

This doesn't really help you much, but one of our club members has a laser engraving business and many members get him to do various things on pens. I suspect that nobody has requested fluting yet, but it could be done just as easily as anything else after a fixture were made to position the pen under the laser. Tapering off to a sharp point might present a problem for laser engraving. I have given him a digital signature as a scalable graphic for "signing" the bottoms of bowls and it beats the heck out of using a woodburning pen. I also have a pen project that I have not done yet, but it is somewhat similar to your's in that I will be using Inlace to fill an engraving on pen and pencil sets with our city logo for presentation to members of the historical committee.

 

[John Terefenko]

Thanks everyone. I think I have the basic idea down now. I am going to buid the jig and I probably will have to use a dremel only because of the space between the head and tail stock. I will post photos if this works out. If not I will be back for more help. The only thing I would have someone laser for me is a name or saying in a pen. I believe just about and design can be achieved. I think if I use a dremel I might even be able to use the tool rest post, instead of making an entire platform that slides in the ways. I was sort of hoping someone may have built something and shown a photo but I will if I succeed. I will also practice on some cheap round blanks before committing to any pen blanks. I have so many ideas running through my head it hurts. 🙂

 

[john lucas]

John The depth of cut is going to be a problem for pens and Inlace. However if the wood is glued well to the insert then you might be able to cut all the way down to that if needed. The depth of cut and the type or router bit will decide how wide the flutes end up.
If you use 4 flutes for example and use a 1/4" round nose bit you will have very little wood left. If you use a V bit and don't cut very deep you will have lots of wood left. The nice thing about the V bits is you can control the width of the flute by how deep you go. Also the width of the flute will change if you cut coves or beads into a V shaped flute. That's lots of fun.
If you use a V bit and fill the grooves. Then taper the pen you will have wider filled grooves on one end than the other. This opens up lots of design opportunities.
Router size does not really matter but it is easier to work with smaller routers. I use trim routers, dremels, flex shaft machines and air powered grinders. They all have advantages and dissadvantages.
You've gotten good advice from all the others. Any number that is divisible into 24 will work for fluting. You can also skip numbers. For example lets say you chose 8 flutes. You could do 3 skip a space and do 3 more and then a space. That's opens up more design opportunities.
For those reading this who don't have indexing. You can buy an aftermarket index wheel from www.ironfireLLC.com. It fits between your chuck and spindle. You do have to build a pin holder to lock it in place but they give you plans and it's very easy.

 

[Joe Greiner]

I thought I had a small-enough router bit for deep veining, but I was mistaken. The Dremel cutter #125 has a point angle of about 36 degrees; HS, so I don't know how effective the cut is at the point. They also have a TC bit of about the same shape, #9906. Neither of these are classified as router bits, but so what?

I suppose commas weren't the best choice for separating factors. Better this way:

24 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 3.

From John's link, aftermarket wheels can have up to 4 circles of hole patterns. For some really weird combinations, salvaged circular saw blades provide even more, if you can lock the blade to the shaft (most likely with an enlarged bore) and devise a latching mechanism:

40 = 2 x 2 x 5

44 = 2 x 2 x 11

54 = 2 x 3 x 3

126 = 2 x 3 x 3 x 7

 

[ray hampton]

Thanks everyone. I think I have the basic idea down now. I am going to buid the jig and I probably will have to use a dremel only because of the space between the head and tail stock. I will post photos if this works out. If not I will be back for more help. The only thing I would have someone laser for me is a name or saying in a pen. I believe just about and design can be achieved. I think if I use a dremel I might even be able to use the tool rest post, instead of making an entire platform that slides in the ways. I was sort of hoping someone may have built something and shown a photo but I will if I succeed. I will also practice on some cheap round blanks before committing to any pen blanks. I have so many ideas running through my head it hurts. 🙂

If you do not use the tool rest post, how will you advance or retract the dremel router ? are you planning on using the tailstock to advance the the router ?

 

[john lucas]

Ray What I do is I have a base installed under the router. It has 2 screws that ride against a form that I clamp to the table the router sits on. I adjust this form for the shape and depth of cut I want. The screws ride against this form so the router won't cut any deeper that I set it. The screws are for fine adjusting. This works very well on flat or convex shapes. for concave shapes I have another base that only has one screw. This allows me to swivel the router to keep it perpendicular to the side of the cove shape.
I don' t know if I have a photo of this set up showing how I route shapes into a curved vessel. I usually just put a piece of plywood down on the router platform. Then I hold a pencil against the form so it draws a line on the plywood shaped like the vessel. I cut this out on the bandsaw and sand it smooth. If you need to be really accurate take the negative part of the plywood and lay it against the vessels and sand or file to shape. The use this to draw on the positive shape that will be your router guide. Clamp this to the router table and adjust the distance for the depth of cut you want and your in business.

 

[ray hampton]

Ray What I do is I have a base installed under the router. It has 2 screws that ride against a form that I clamp to the table the router sits on. I adjust this form for the shape and depth of cut I want. The screws ride against this form so the router won't cut any deeper that I set it. The screws are for fine adjusting. This works very well on flat or convex shapes. for concave shapes I have another base that only has one screw. This allows me to swivel the router to keep it perpendicular to the side of the cove shape.
I don' t know if I have a photo of this set up showing how I route shapes into a curved vessel. I usually just put a piece of plywood down on the router platform. Then I hold a pencil against the form so it draws a line on the plywood shaped like the vessel. I cut this out on the bandsaw and sand it smooth. If you need to be really accurate take the negative part of the plywood and lay it against the vessels and sand or file to shape. The use this to draw on the positive shape that will be your router guide. Clamp this to the router table and adjust the distance for the depth of cut you want and your in business.

very good project