The body and base that were band sawn out earlier is
clamped to the fence on the drill press.
A small drill bit is chucked up and aligned to my center punched mark as
shown below. A pilot hole is drilled
through the wood and the steel tube.
When that’s done an intermediate larger drill is used then replaced with
the final hole’s drill size. Then the
insert is run in the same way as the others.
Next the body shape is redrawn using the template and cut
out using the bandsaw. After that the
disk sander is used to clean up and smooth out the curves. That’s followed with a pad sander starting
with 120 grit paper and ending with 320 grit.
This is what the body looks like right off the bandsaw
and when almost done with the sanding.
Last bit of machine work on the body is to go back to the
router and put the same chamfer on the bottom outside edge as was done in Post3 Fitting the Tube, Shaping the Base, Glue-up & Layout. In this photo you can see where the part of
the base to the right of the router bit has been chamfered while the rest has
yet to be done. You can also see some
scratches left over from the disk sander that still need to be taken out.
Now it’s back to do the final hand finish sanding
removing all the disk sander scratches and softening the bodies top edge. The top photo shows that done and the bottom
one is a closer look at the 45-degree bevel on the top edge.
The softening of the bodies top edge is not hard but it
is at such a small scale I really need my magnifiers to see what I am doing.
Making the handles are next. They start out as a roughly 2” square piece
of cherry about 3 ½” long. From there
the centers are marked and the piece is put in the lathe with a drive center in
the headstock which is on the left and a live center on the right.
A roughing gouge is used to turn the piece round then
some layout lines are added based on a revised handle profile. The revision is based on me holding various
plane, file and router handles to see what would work.
After some time turning and holding the piece as I worked
it down the design changed a bit so I went back into SketchUp and made
revisions based on what had been turned on the lathe. Here are the next two versions. They are the same except for a small
difference at the stem.
Those two versions are printed out at full scale and one
is glued onto a piece of 5mm underlayment so I can make a template. A template will let me make multiple handles very nearly identical. The left photo
shows the pattern glued on while the right one shows it after I drilled a 1¾”
hole. That bit is used since it’s the
closest one to the 1 13/16” diameter of the actual handle.
Once some minor fitting of the template to the handle is
done I have something that should allow me to make repeatable pieces. At least that’s the plan. Later there will be a second template to take
care of finishing the top when the tenon on the right end or the top of the
handle gets removed. Right now, I need
the tenons on both ends to facilitate the turning process.
Next is drill a hole in the base of the handle. That’s where a piece of threaded rod will get
epoxied in and used to attach the handle to the insert in the body. Process is to remove the handle, take out
the drive center, install the scroll chuck, flip the handle end for end then
tighten it in the chuck while using the live center to center the handle on the
axis of the lathe.
With the handle centered and securely held in place the
live center is removed and a drill chuck is installed with a 5/16” bit marked
with the hole depth. The lathe is
started and the drill run in until the edge of the tape hits the face of the handle. Here everything is set ready to start
drilling.
After the hole is drilled the handle is reversed so the
bottom is clamped in the scroll chuck and aligned with the live center in the
tail stock. Now the curve of the top is
continued until the tenon is removed.
Here just a tiny piece of the tenon is left. Once the tenon is removed the piece is sanded up
through 400 grit paper.
Last bit of lathe work is to mark the final length and
part the handle off. The photo below
shows where the parting tool has just started to break through into the
previously drilled hole. At this point I
quit turning and cut the piece off with a fine-toothed hack saw.
A sharp knife is used to clean the rough splinters up and
a hand counter sink completes the handle.
With the master done and patterns created all I have to do is make three
more that match up with this one. Easier
said than done.
Below are almost all the things used to make the first
handle not including the lathe of course.
😊 At the back are the remaining three blanks
ready to be turned. Right center between
the patterns and the drill is the finished first handle.
Next Up – Three More Handles & Two Knobs
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