Drilling, Using Hack Saw, Shelf project continued

Attendance: Keenan, Shawn, Jim Hiltz, Jim MacLean, John, Miles, Paul, Rick

Leo had some firewood scraps that he turned into vases: Russian Olive, Lilac, Beech
He challenged us to identify the wood..Rick rose to the challenge

He discussed how to drill a hole down the center of a rough piece like these;

Locate the centre on each end
Make a platform for the drill press
Chuck in a straight rod
Drill a small hole in the center of the platform and move it so that the rod enters the hole
Clamp the platform in place
Place a dowel pin in that hole
This locates the center of the wood blank accurately
Drill down through the top half way and then flip the piece end to end to drill the opposite end
See photos

Leo discussed how to straighten a bent rod:
Place it in the drill press
Turn it to locate the high spot and strike it with a hammer

To cut a nut in half:

Clamp it in the vice
Use a Hack saw to start a cut and take long strokes
After a few strokes turn the nut 180 degrees and cut again
This minimizes wandering of the hack saw blade
Once done, the nut is cleaned up on the metal lathe

Tips:

Shafts are always measured in sixteenths: thus a 3 inch shaft is actually 2 15/16 diameter

Rick worked on the bowl lathe

Miles, John, Shawn, Keenan started the dovetail shelf project  using hand planes to flatten the wood
Paul and Jim Hiltz cut the threaded rod into 7 inch lengths to make the screw chuck for the large vase turnings



Bisecting a nut      ;                             Russian Olive

Spalted beech                                       Drilling

       Beech                                                               Rick's Spruce burl

Dovetail Shelf project--planing flat