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What is this thing?
- Thread starter Jamie Straw
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I don’t know its name but it is a type of caliper device.
A friend used one on production runs of balusters etc.
The fingers are attached to a long mounting rod that fixes onto the lathe.
The fingers can be positioned along the rod where needed and set to fall through at a specified diameter.
Once set up all the parting cuts can be made at each finger without having to use a caliper.
My friend used calipers to do the parting on the first one then adjusted a finger on the parting cut.
His device had a place to put the spindle being duplicated so he could easily see the turning required to connect the partings.
A friend used one on production runs of balusters etc.
The fingers are attached to a long mounting rod that fixes onto the lathe.
The fingers can be positioned along the rod where needed and set to fall through at a specified diameter.
Once set up all the parting cuts can be made at each finger without having to use a caliper.
My friend used calipers to do the parting on the first one then adjusted a finger on the parting cut.
His device had a place to put the spindle being duplicated so he could easily see the turning required to connect the partings.
be very handy for production turners!!
The above was my immediate thought looking at this. The time it would take to setup makes sense for a production environment. For a hobby turner I don't see the advantage, don't we turn for the enjoyment not speed.
Sometimes called a 'spindle dancer' jig, or a duplicating finger jig. I haven't needed one yet, but it is filed away for when I do.
@Richard Findley uses these often in his videos. He’s a production turner in the UK.
If I decide some day to be a production turner, will somebody please put me out of my misery? That sounds too much like work.
You can say that again. Also sounds like work for no real monetary gain.
When I want to make identical things I make a story stick - marked off with distances and diameters, hold against the wood and mark with a pencil then use calipers. Sorry, don't have a picture of one but a picture of the result of using one on simple turnings. Not perfect, but good enough for me. And far more important, my Lovely Bride likes them and has used them every day since 2007.
Cocobolo and Dogwood.
JKJ
Cocobolo and Dogwood.
JKJ
Speaking of story boards I was watching a video by a production turner, woodturner21 on YouTube, who used a story board with pins. He would just touch it to the workpiece and scribe the marks right on it i thought it was a brilliant idea.
Marking out patterns with pins is a technique whih is widespread among production turners and has probably used been for centuries.. Turners making the thousands of detailed small spindles for mashrabiyas (huge window lattices used widely in houses 400-100 years ago in Cairo) have used them. I do a lot of spindle turning though not on production scale (see the Tree Challenge) and often use story sticks.
Roger Wiegand
Beta Tester
A variant on the pin theme is to sketch the profile of your spindle on a board and make notches in the edge at the inflection points. Hold the board up to the blank and put your pencil in each V notch to mark each point.
The pin or notch technique is nice to mark the key positions on a smoothed spindle before shaping, especially for production. For custom pieces I like to so something similar but use a simple piece of card stock. I mark the critical positions down the edge and write down the diameters at each point to let me set calipers at each marked point to size with a parting tool. If it were a longer spindle, I'd use a thin strip of wood instead of card stock.
For example, the gentleman who tunes my piano had a "tuning hammer" with a handle with a shape and feel he loved, but the handle was plastic and the hardware wasn't ideal for tuning grand pianos. I salvaged the shaft and special tuning socket from an old tuning hammer and made a new handle to fit his hand.
I first took careful measurements of key points of of his existing handle and made a straight story stick with the positions marked along one edge then marked the diameter needed at each position. The diameters are simply short straight lines drawn from the edge to set the caliper.
It was a simple matter to transfer the positions to the cylinder with a pencil, then use a parting tool with a caliper to define each diameter. When the shape is important, I also like to use a pencil to mark the bottom of each depth groove so I don't accidentally shave a spot too deep with the skew. Cut until the pencil marks are almost gone then usually use hand scrapers to refine the shape.
I turned the handle shape from B&W ebony, turned a tapered steel ferrule on the metal lathe, drilled and shaped for the hardware, then reversed and mounted on a stick to shape and smooth the bottom. I took the pieces to the guy so he could set the shaft length to suit him.
Epoxy and done! He loves it.
Test fit on my piano. I'll tune other's pianos if they have just a bad note or two but leave mine to the experts!
A complete tuning takes well over an hour, maybe two. For those keeping score, in the '90s a professional tuning around here cost about $35. Today it's nearly $150. And qualified tuners are now hard to find.
JKJ
(edit: misspelled "hammer"!)
For example, the gentleman who tunes my piano had a "tuning hammer" with a handle with a shape and feel he loved, but the handle was plastic and the hardware wasn't ideal for tuning grand pianos. I salvaged the shaft and special tuning socket from an old tuning hammer and made a new handle to fit his hand.
I first took careful measurements of key points of of his existing handle and made a straight story stick with the positions marked along one edge then marked the diameter needed at each position. The diameters are simply short straight lines drawn from the edge to set the caliper.
It was a simple matter to transfer the positions to the cylinder with a pencil, then use a parting tool with a caliper to define each diameter. When the shape is important, I also like to use a pencil to mark the bottom of each depth groove so I don't accidentally shave a spot too deep with the skew. Cut until the pencil marks are almost gone then usually use hand scrapers to refine the shape.
I turned the handle shape from B&W ebony, turned a tapered steel ferrule on the metal lathe, drilled and shaped for the hardware, then reversed and mounted on a stick to shape and smooth the bottom. I took the pieces to the guy so he could set the shaft length to suit him.
Epoxy and done! He loves it.
Test fit on my piano. I'll tune other's pianos if they have just a bad note or two but leave mine to the experts!
A complete tuning takes well over an hour, maybe two. For those keeping score, in the '90s a professional tuning around here cost about $35. Today it's nearly $150. And qualified tuners are now hard to find.
JKJ
(edit: misspelled "hammer"!)
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Forgive my ignorance, but what are those? They are beautiful objects, but I’m curious about their function?
The video is of me turning, posted by a customer. They’re called duplicating fingers (I do sell them if anyone is interested) and speed up production work considerably. Not just for spindle work either.
I fully understand people not wanting to be production turners, although most say they’d find it repetitive and boring but have you seen some of the arty turnings that take tens and even hundreds of hours to make - no thank you!! It’s just a different kind of challenge in this wonderful craft in which there’s something for everyone!
Richard
I fully understand people not wanting to be production turners, although most say they’d find it repetitive and boring but have you seen some of the arty turnings that take tens and even hundreds of hours to make - no thank you!! It’s just a different kind of challenge in this wonderful craft in which there’s something for everyone!
Richard
Pepper mills?
These?
So sorry. I should have said. Those are my first attempt at pepper and salt grinders. Since I'm not the brightest candle in the room, I made, er, let me remember..., ah..., the dark one for pepper and the lighter one for the salt!! Yeah, that sounds right. 🙂
The Dogwood is from our farm. The Cocobolo is not. (Ha!)
Actually, the cocobolo was almost free. Many years ago a guy who had acquired a big room full of wood decided to go into the business of selling wood. I noticed several pieces marked "Claro Walnut from California". I bought a small piece and tried it then came back and bought everything like it he had. Later when I got into wood identification with a microscope I discovered it was cocobolo. If I had known what cocobolo smelled like when cut, I'd have known immediately.
There were two big pieces, both priced at $25. I could barely lift either of these with both arms. Based on a cocobolo log I saw at a dealer, just one piece was probably worth at least $600. One would be good for bowls. I'm using these slowly, a small piece at a time - at the current rate, I'll have to leave most of it to someone in my will.
I give these boxes to mothers of baby girls. I figure they can hold diaper pins at first, bugs or pennies she collects someday, then later for jewelry.
So far no one has turned one down.
And remember when fidget spinners were all the rage? Cocobolo, ebony, and brass.
Great for finger tops.
(Oops, got off topic again - blame it on the ADHD.)
I've since made more salt/pepper grinders, different designs, for friends and family. For some reason, people like using them. Oh, I figured it out - they are people who like to eat.
JKJ
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I'd take a guess and say a pair of salt & pepper grinders? It was my first thought when I read that post.....
Ah never mind I see JKJ already got it answered.. (I guess I guessed right)
I had a similar case. A local woodturner who was too old to continue with the vast wood hoard he had donated to all of the turners in town, and I got a piece that was labeled "claro walnut" in marker on one side, and in much older, faded pencil, it was labeled striped ebony (or Macassar Ebony). I made sure to put that somewhere special. The same guy gave my high school shop a large bowl blank of mesquite, which my shop teacher gave a beginner turner to turn their first bowl, thinking it was walnut. He never turned it, and wasn't super interested, but it's quite common for the misidentification of wood. Good to know how to identify the correct wood.
Oh gosh, seems so obvious now!! 😂 The power of assumptions…I just assumed it was something make-up related haha.
Could you please explain how your first thought was of make-up gear, Michael? Is there something you'd like to share with the group? 😁
For those who haven't seen it, this book is my go-to for wood ID. It can't possibly handle all the exotics in the world but it's good for many of the most common and most US domestics. I got interested in this years ago when a show-n-tell bowl was passed around at the turning club. On the bottom was written "Cherry" although it was distinctively ring porous wood!
All that is needed for hardwoods is a single-edged razor blade to shave a bit of end grain and a 10x hand lens, although I use a low-power stereo microscope. For some species (e.g. locust) a UV light is also helpful.
R. Bruce Hoadley's "Identifying wood"
I had to buy a second copy since I used the first one so much the pages started getting loose!
Also, Section 7 on in this article on the Wood Database describes the basics. And all or most of their wood entries have end grain photo closeups.
Wood Identification Guide | The Wood Database
www.wood-database.com
JKJ
If I wanted to turn lots of identical items I might consider elements from this setup. Not difficult to make your own version. I know one guy who made his own to turn identical wooden knobs.
When a careful spindle turning is needed, first I will make a full sized drawing, trim to leave about 1" paper beyond the edges of the drawing, extend tic marks to the edges of the paper indicating center lines of coves and beads, ends of fillets, coves and beads, etc. Photocopy, glue the copy onto a piece of thin poster board. When turning to a particular diameter, I simply set the calipers to that diameter on the drawing. Avoids errors misreading ruler when setting calipers to a particular diameter, and much faster for me.
There are many methods to duplicate spindle turnings so here is the method I developed more than 25 tears ago. The wood is old growth red wood salvaged from barrel staves that were about 20 feet long by 2 1/2" thick. The barrel had been sold when the brewery shut down in the mid 1960's and broke down then stored in an old semi trailer about 60 miles west of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. I don't remember what I paid for them but I did have enough material to make about 60 of the deck balusters a;long with the rails and posts. The photo shows the CAD drawing attached to the extra long steel tool rest. The detail points were extended up to the edge of the rest and by using a square as shown are transferred to the spinning blank. The various diameters are noted, cut to size with a parting tool and checked with calipers. Once I got started I got the turning time down to as low as 20 minutes each so with the time to set up and prepare the blanks I had about 30 to 40 minutes each.
Hahahaha, cracked me up 😂 John mentioned that his wife used them every day, so I just assumed something specific to her. 🤦♂️
I'll should tell her that. It might be the last day of my life so if anyone wants any of my stuff speak now or forever be left out of my will. 🙂
First dibs on the rest of that Cocobolo!
I'll take the skid steer and attachments, thanks!
Ok, you're down for the cocobolo. (There's more of that than what I mentioned) Should I add the big blocks and slab of olive, ebony, af. blackwood, zebrano, pink ivory, tulipwood and other rosewoods to your list? The shelf of spalted wood? You're close enough to drive so you might also want the big planks of true mahogany, bubinga, figured sapele, american chestnut. What, you're not interested in the burls?
Oh, and enough machines and tools to open a store. You might need rent a bigger u-haul. What about the little machine shop and everything in the welding shop? Hate to see everything go into the dumpster and the wood to the burn pile.
I've heard stories about that when someone passed and the family had no clue - just wanted everything GONE.
People - write down where you want everything to go!! A lawyer can add a provision for a handwritten memo that you can change at any time.
JKJ
I'm really envious of that wood collection. You've had years collecting it in sure. Bet some of it had great stories behind it as well.
Gregory
Gregory
Come visit some day! Everyone who visits goes home with wood. But you'll be sick of my stories before you make an excuse to escape! 🙂
JKJ