How to Turn a Tapered Spindle?

"buck" skrev i melding news:35350$42176503$44a42d78$ snipped-for-privacy@msgid.meganewsservers.com...

I make a lot of these for stool-legs. What I do: I measure the length of the finished leg, mark, and turn the thickness + some with a parting iron in each end. I calculate the thicness of the middle, and turn this thickness + some, in the middle. Then I use the roughingiron to take the edges and the main thicness down to near the thickness marked with the parting iron, then I change to a 1" oval chisel "scary sharp" and I straighten the line down to the parting iron marks. After controlmeasuring, I either use the chisel more, or I sand and finish. An aluminum ruler is my help to get he line straight; I just hold it along the spindle, and mark "humps" with my pencil and take them off with the chisel.

If I make a longer leg, I make more measured markings with the parting tool along the length.

Good luck:-)

Bjarte

what type of lathe are you using?

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

There are several ways to do this. A lathe duplicator will do the job quickly and your spindles will be the same. The cutting tool follows a template that is cut from a piece of hardboard. The downside is lathe duplicators can be rather expensive. Another option is to build a carriage that clamps onto the bed and allows a router (fitted with a core box bit) to run along a sloped track. In either case, I would remove the excess on the table saw or band saw. I don't have the extra bucks to buy a lathe duplicator, but have built "router carriages" to make many tapered duplicate spindles. This setup can actually be done without a lathe, using a friend to run an electric drill to turn the piece while I move the router down the carriage at the approximate rate of 5 seconds per inch of travel.

One of my first projects was to make 2 36"dia fake wagon wheels each with

After doing about 3 this way I said to heck with cutting the depths at the

Billh

Nothing quite as exotic as the others'. I cut the tapers oversize by about

Lathe duplicator? Router carriage? Whatsa matter, Phish, don't you like to turn?

Barry

Thanks to All for the help....... Off I go.....

========================== There are several commercial products that do this. A low cost version was sold several years back by Sears under the name "Router Crafter". In addition to the duplication, it had a cable drive that allowed spirals in both directions. It could also be indexed for straight line fluting. They show up on E-bay from time to time. If you can get one for $50.00 (USD) or less, it would be a good accessory to have on hand. There's a more precision device, but it goes for much higher $$. Try Art Ransom's web site for more details. Neither on will replace your lathe, but can be a usful add-on.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

Hi Buck

Mixed the two Question up, sorry So I was going to suggest for the sharpening question to go to Darrell Feltmates web site, he has a lot of good info for all turners, not just grinding but also making tools, projects, how to's etc.