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TECH TALK
The parts you sent me for my 30 caliber cartridges do not fit. When a bullet is chambered in a rifle and fired, there is an explosion that is initiated by the primer when the firing pin strikes it. This explosion does almost nothing to the back of the cartridge because it is encased in a steel cylinder known as the chamber and the brass at the rear of the cartridge is much more heavy duty. However the front end of the cartridge where the casing tapers down to hold the projectile is not supported so well and is a little weaker. This explosion will cause the front end of the cartridge to swell/expand outward slightly.
This expansion is very slight but is enough to render the cartridge useless for reloading unless it is re-sized. If your pre-fired cartridge is not sized, then it is true, the parts I sent you will not fit, they are just slightly too small and easily fall into the cartridge.
In order to size the cartridge you will need to either purchase a sizing die for the caliber you need along with a press to hold the die along with a lube mat and some lube. Or, if you know someone who reloads their own 30 caliber ammunition, you could probably ask them to size the cartridges for you. Be sure to lube the cartridge before inserting it in the die. Without the lube, you will not get the cartridge out very easily. Believe me, I've done it and it is quite an ordeal to remove the cartridge. You will only forget once.
Once the cartridge is properly sized you will have no problem in getting the parts to fit. One of the pen blanks you sent me was broken in shipping. Many blanks can be easily broken if they are jarred, dropped or are hastily drilled/turned. However, there is one consolation. Most blanks can be glued back together and you can proceed with your project. The use of CA glue is authorized and highly encouraged. I glue up cracked and broken blanks all the time and these delicate temperamental blanks make the most beautiful finished pieces.
If fixing a broken blank is outside your realm of comfort then you should probably not be purchasing blanks with a high degree of difficulty to drill or turn without incident. Stick to easier, less expensive stock and practice a bit more on your gap filling techniques.
Successful creative turning is a hobby which requires a lot of thought outside of the box. Anyone can take a scraper or a duplicator and hack out a cylinder from of a piece of walnut, give it a quick once over with a few grits of sandpaper and then rub a little friction polish on it. Then quickly sell the completed bauble for $5.00 on Ebay and do it over and over again and again. The whole process took ten minutes. I find it so much more rewarding to put thought into my final product and take pride in the functional (or not so functional) creations that I make.
The inexperienced turner tends to feel if something goes wrong and they followed what they learned, something must be wrong with the kit or blank. They tend to be the ones who are actually the most demanding and insistent that it's the kit or the blank. It tends to be just a learning curve. No-one is a master craftsman overnight.
 Turned from a 1.5 X 1.5 X 6" turning blank | | |
Bottom line, slow down and do it right, learn from the experience. Absolutely nothing is automatic in any kind of wood turning. Take the time to see the beauty in what you are creating and make something truly special each and every time. Ad-lib and make it uniquely yours. Put some beads, coves, wiggles and wobbles in it. Fix the small problems that arise before they become big problems and above all, pay attention to every detail in the process. Problems which are about to happen on the lathe will generally make a slightly different sound from the normal. If you are wearing your stereo headphones with the music cranked up to deafening levels, you are not going to know anything until pieces of the blank are bouncing off of your safety glasses. Stop the lathe and put some CA glue and sawdust in the crack now, don't wait to see if it comes apart and then be unable to find enough of the pieces to glue back in and recover. Wood turning is a hobby, enjoy it. The term "haste makes waste" can never be more true than when it comes to wood turning.
Before I get inundated with emails asking how I turned the fidgy widget whirly woohoo on the left, let me just tell you now. The technique is called eccentric turning. You can spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on chucks designed to create different styles. They all have their own unique qualities and will produce similar offset, oblong, oval or tilted dipsy doodle results.
This one was done without the aid of a specialty chuck. Once you have your stock turned round, set the stock into your chuck with a piece of wood beside it to offset the blank from center. You can also loosen the chuck (I use a Nova) and tilt the cylinder off center and re-tighten the chuck firmly onto the workpiece. Now turn the top of the gizmo and then sand and finish it. Then loosen the chuck again and offset the workpiece off into another direction either by tilting the stock or placing in another wedge of wood to set it off center in another axis. Again, turn it then sand it and finish the next section. Keep going until your finished with your little beauty. There is not a right or wrong shape, just turn what you feel.
Bottle stoppers as you can see are really nice with this type of turning on
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Turned from a 1.5" dia. 3" long dowel.
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them. Of course you will have to use two chucks for the stopper top. First the Nova, or whatever you use, and then part off the piece and drill it for the bottle stopper chuck. Or, as I did with this one, drill the 23/64" hole before you start. Make sure you leave enough mass in the center at the bottom to accommodate the threads of the stopper chuck and the stopper. This is where a nice digital caliper would come in handy.
This type of turning is not very easily accomplished on a small light weight mini lathe, there is far too much vibration. You will trash the bearings in the power head or at the very least you'll have to chase the lathe around on the workbench. I have made a couple of small ones on my old 3/4" PSI Carba-Tec-4SE (my first lathe). There is a lot of vibration when the piece is tilted off center so start the lathe off slow and speed up gradually (a variable speed lathe is almost a must). I do most of my eccentric work on a Jet 1220VS which is a bit larger than a mini, referred to as a Midi (middle size lathe). You have to start slow with this lathe too but it is easily doable on a 10 or 12 inch lathe with a cast iron base. Jet makes a nice well balanced lathe for this type of work. If you have a large floor model lathe then this should be a breeze.
I use three chisels to turn the project. I used a roughing gouge to make the stock round and then used a fingernail gouge to rough out the shapes. Then I use a skew to smooth it off and prep it for sanding/finishing. Use lots of sandpaper to smooth out the transition marks. What are transition marks? You will see them and know exactly what they are if you try this technique. A lot of the sanding is done with the lathe off. I did the final polishing on the Beall Buffing System with Tripoli, white diamond and carnauba wax.
My first eccentric turning really looks rough, (that's probably an understatement), but I still love it. It is a little goblet made from an old scrubby looking piece of maple. I think I put an entire three minutes in it. I like to show it off with pride and see what peoples reactions are to it. I get everything from "oooh thats nice" to "uhuh" to "man, that really looks rough". With practice and patients your work gets better and better.
Be very careful with this turning technique, the piece will definitely give your knuckles a good spanking if you are not paying attention. I guarantee that it will get your full attention on the first good smack, you might even lose a little skin but it will grow back. |
COMING SOON
We are trying to come to an agreement with a popular power tool company to sell their lathes, bandsaws and other more popular power tools. If we can get the details hammered out, we will have a few of the tools here to be picked up locally. For shipped items, they will be drop shipped from a regional warehouse in your area.
Another deal we are working on is with a popular high end turni ng tool manufacturer to sell nice chisels along with the quality power tools. I can't say who we are dealing with at this time, but we hope to have all the details worked out very soon.
Late this month we will be carrying black powder coated tubes for the Monet kits to be used along with the Laser Inlay blanks. No more wondering how you're going to hide the brass tube in your nice inlay blank.
A pink ribbon pen clip is on the way. Tracey has been working hard with the manufacturer to create a very nice pink ribbon clip which will fit the slimline size pen cap. We will start out with gold and then see how the demand pans out for the chrome. The ribbon is designed after the same ribbon Tracey created for her Breast Cancer pink ribbon inlay blank. This design is a Wood-N-Whimsies exclusive. .
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silhouette series. She has a snow boarder and a golfer.