Fast cheap way to turn miniature balusters?

[Tom Albrecht]

Just curious, how much did you quote the client?

[Jim Underwood]

Scott that is the way they used to turn bowling pins : full profile knives counter rotating to the workpeice. the problem is longitudinal grain. When the cutter gets a bite between the winter growth and blows it apart it could be pretty spectacular! not only the wood chunks flying every where but the knives would come loose on occasion and go through the guard shield. there would be remnants of the like stuck in the ceiling of the turning area! Lots of wasted material and high attrition. A shaped scraper would leave a rough finish that would require lots of sanding and being so thin I doubt they would even be round once you got them smooth, not to mention the chipped corners at the transition from round to square. For these small pieces a curtain knife lathe would work well but the tooling for such a short run would be expensive.

I had the same thought that I could grind a single knife from some HSS knife stock (I work in a cabinet shop where we grind our own knives and make molding), but thought it would be too hard to keep these small pieces from just splintering.
What is a curtain knife lathe?

Jim my comment was about "No fast and cheap". It has been my life to make not only fast and cheap possible but include quality as well in many areas not just turning. Often the case is that people resign to the beleife that there cant be a better way. For my fathers entire 60+ years as a wood turner he ran modified metal lathes as duplicating wood lathes. It would be quite easy to build a duplicator that would fit you lathe for the run of your parts inexpensively. many of the add on duplicators and especially the ones where a movable pedestal with a cutting tool is pushed around provide a rough finish cut. This is because if the tool is ground with proper reliefe to allow a good cut the tool self feeds. Done properly you shouldn't loose very many from breaking and sanding can be held to a minimum. Your greatest time loss will be chucking and unchucking parts. The lever actin tailstock solves that though.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought you meant that I should resign myself to limitations. I have to admit that made me bow up just a tad for a bit, and make me determined to find a better way....
Good to know we're actually on the same page.

Are you saying I shouldn't buy a duplicator? Are there duplicators on the market that don't self feed? My client says he'll buy me one if it'll help.

Tell me the basics of building a duplicator that would fit my lathe. What is the main thing that keeps it from self feeding? Screw advance?

To answer another person's question, I have not quoted the client a price. I'm still exploring ways to do this.
If I could find an outfit that makes this stuff on a regular basis, I'd get a quote. My buddy Hugh Patrick over in Barnesville who has a commercial duplicating lathe can't go that small. And the one quote I got from a prominent outfit north of here quoted a price of $53 each, for a grand total of $26,500.00. That'd be a pretty expensive dollhouse, no matter how upscale it is...

As for the CarveWright, it's so slow that I'd never consider making spindles, especially turned spindles on it. If it were carved spindles, I'd say, perhaps one or two, and then cast duplicates of it.

There were two other thoughts I had about this.
The first is that I should try (as suggested) a rotary cutter of some sort, either my dremel, or a small router to follow a pattern.
The second was to purchase or fabricate a square drive collet or chuck for the headstock and tailstock.
It would be nice to have that lever action quill/tailstock, but all I have is a standard handwheel/screw quill.

[Mel Fulks]

A good moulder guy can grind knives for that job that will have good detail. But you might have to insist that is what happens. Making knives easier to grind by obviating skilled free hand grinding has resulted in a lot of sloppy rounded edges. I recently bought a 12 foot piece of crown that I had to work on for over an hour to get enough detail on it to justify its use.

[Marvin Hasenak]

This is what I would do. First use Dale Maxim's low cost duplicator idea http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ost-Duplicator But with modifications. My mod would be using a power source for the cutter, first I thought a Dremel, but I think if I could find a router bit that would cut the shape, I would go with a trim router with a speed controller on it. The other option would be to use a Foredom with a 44T handle on a similar setup to Dale's but a combination of it and Dick Webber's Flutemaster. That sort of takes care of the cutting system, designing and building should be sort of easy.

On the lathe I would use a 3/8" wood dowel for my blank, extra long, and cutoff the excess after I am finished. I would also use my collet chuck to hold the dowel. The collet chuck will need about 1.5" of dowel in it, another .5 extra length at the tailstock end, so about 2" of waste per unit. With the collet chuck the "blank" will run true every time, no waste of time trying to get it centered. My pattern would be made of 3/8" thick Plexiglass, I have tried the thin brass etc., that the Anker and other duplicators use, but found the thicker stuff works better.

Buy good dowels, maple, birch or walnut, not that crap from the big box stores that feels like they are made from bamboo. I get mine from a place in FT Worth that specializes in toy parts.

[Steve Peterson]

This is what I would do. First use Dale Maxim's low cost duplicator idea http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...ost-Duplicator But with modifications. My mod would be using a power source for the cutter, first I thought a Dremel, but I think if I could find a router bit that would cut the shape, I would go with a trim router with a speed controller on it. The other option would be to use a Foredom with a 44T handle on a similar setup to Dale's but a combination of it and Dick Webber's Flutemaster. That sort of takes care of the cutting system, designing and building should be sort of easy.

On the lathe I would use a 3/8" wood dowel for my blank, extra long, and cutoff the excess after I am finished. I would also use my collet chuck to hold the dowel. The collet chuck will need about 1.5" of dowel in it, another .5 extra length at the tailstock end, so about 2" of waste per unit. With the collet chuck the "blank" will run true every time, no waste of time trying to get it centered. My pattern would be made of 3/8" thick Plexiglass, I have tried the thin brass etc., that the Anker and other duplicators use, but found the thicker stuff works better.

Buy good dowels, maple, birch or walnut, not that crap from the big box stores that feels like they are made from bamboo. I get mine from a place in FT Worth that specializes in toy parts.

A collet chuck could be used with longer dowels to minimize waste. Start with a length of around 18" and around 3.5" sticking out. Carve one, cut it off, then shove another section of dowel forward. Minimize the amount of wood sticking through the chuck to prevent it from whipping and breaking off.

Steve

[Jim Underwood]

Sorry guys, I can't use dowels. There are square sections in this baluster.
Enkeboll-BLR-ARN-XX-6XXX-2.jpg

[Marvin Hasenak]

Your next fix. http://www.davidreedsmith.com/articl...ng_needles.htm

You will also need something on the tailstock point to keep the point of the live center from "finding the soft spot of the end grain.

[roger oldre]

the way the cutting edge is ground makes a difference. most of the duplicators end up with a tool that us more like a pointed scrape. purpose built duplicating lathes often use two bits fitted back to back or a single bit ground like the bow of a canoe. Many of the ad on duplicators use a chain drive which will do in a pinch, they do get loose if not kept up. If you plan to purchase get a good one. I mentioned befre you could build an effective duplicator for the small parts you are asking about fairly inexpensively. A peice of UHMW machined to fit the ways of your lathe and a lever to feed cross the bed with a stylus on the end to follow the template at the rear. Another lever anchored behind the ways attached too the block to advance the "crossfeed" in the longitudinal. you would have to support the template either on the back way or off the benchtop supportingyour lathe. It may sound complicated but it really would be easy.

[roger oldre]

I looked up your lathe... it is probly on legs. you would ave to fasten spport to the bottom of the bed, but still simple. I have a few videos on you tube. Look up Oreos40.

[Jim Underwood]

I looked up your lathe... it is probly on legs. you would ave to fasten spport to the bottom of the bed, but still simple. I have a few videos on you tube. Look up Oreos40.

Here is the lathe in question. I took a look at your homemade lathe. Very IMPRESSIVE! It's got feed and everything. Is your bit shown in those videos the "canoe bow" shape?
As for the duplicators, I've looked at the Vega, and it looks the best so far. The others look like they'd be too light duty. You consider it a good one?
How about your centers? Looks like you have a Steb type center on the tailstock and a pin center on the headstock. I don't think I can get away with that on this small a spindle.
IMG_5750.jpg

[roger oldre]

for the handles in the vid there is a drilled hole. a pilot has been used in lieu of the pointed center on the drive and just a standard cup center with a point for the other end. I also use a jig for centering: two sides form a corner with an adjustable ppoint on the bottom.line the piece up in the corner and give it a bump flip and repeat. It leaves a recess that the center points follow till tight. Vega has been around a long time. they also build copy lathes and know what is going on. premade tooling is expensive but once you see how to grind a bit it is easy to understand.

[roger oldre]

[roger oldre]

Here is what I called a curtain knife lathe. It actually has three cutters. The first takes off the square corners and sizes the blank to fit a traveling steady of fixed diameter.he one in the video forgoes this step to keep the square ends. The second knife follows a template and roughs the turning to approximate size and the third is the "curtain", a full profile cutter for the final cut. My dad had one of these (what we called a curtain knife lathe) at one time. The tooling costs were prohibitive for any runs that took less than a month to run.