nut and bolt in boxwood workshop pics

[cornucopia]

here is how I did the nut and bolt box

first of I mounted the wood between centres in dave's centre holes (a huge help thank you)

here is my rough marking out of proportions

here you can see the results of me hand sanding the blank- i used a wooden block, i started at 120 and went through to 600 by which point the boxwood was like glass.

here i have made the basic cuts defining the nut and bolt shape

here is the pith- will it cause me a problem? at this stage i don't know-but i was thinking thats a long length of male thread to chase :-k

bolt head definition

a slight hiccup here a si needed to make a dovetail spigot to fit my o donnel jaws but i hadn't allot of room- so i found a old parting tool which i got free with my first clarke lathe and ground a skew on the end of it- it worked perfectly.

the two blanks parted of and ready to go

I tend to always do the female thread first- here it is mounted in my chuck jaws ready to go

i cut all the way through with a spindle gouge- at this point i was thinking thats a long female thread to chase will i be able to do it?

with the lathe at about 250rpm (this is the only time i ever care about what speed i am turning at- as it is vital with thread chasing) i have done the hardest part and started the female thread successfully- no double start etc

a few seconds later and a few more threads added

and here is the threads to full depth all the way through the nut- it started to get a bit difficult towards the back to get the thread smooth but this doesn't matter as it will be cut away later when its reversed.

out with the nut in with the bolt

the start of the male thread

a bit more- by now the chaser is feeding itself in all you have to do is guide it.

here it is complete- the nut fits but isn't screwing all the way on because of that ragged bit at the back, so i take a risk and take the bolt out of the jaws to sort out the nut- note to self if i ever make another one remember to do this earlier :roll:

heres a blurry pic of the nut threaded onto a waste block of african blackwood, so that i can clean up the back side

much to my relief with the nut cleaned up and a little more chasing on the bottom end of the male thread it screws on and of the entire length a great feeling.

i reverse turned the bolt to remove the chuck marks by wrapping the thread with masking tape and gently holding it in the central part of my chuck jaws- it worked a treat

the chasers

for now i've treated it with lemon oil to protect it- i usually polish my threaded box's with the u-beaut system but I don't think this lighter coloured boxwood will look good shiny so i'll have to think about an alternative finish :-k

A big thankyou to DaveL for cutting the hexagonal blank on his router thing so accurately =D>

 

[PowerTool]

Great set of pictures,George - thanks for sharing

Andrew

 

[Hans]

Thank you George!

Just bought a pair of thread chasers. I am looking forward to a visit to Jan Hovens, a well known wood-threading specialist in the Netherlands, for some tuition. This would be a good project to strive for.

Hans

 

[TEP]

Excellent George, bet your old man is made up with that.

Can you explain how Dave cut the hexagonal for you with his router? Am very interested in how it is done.

 

[boysie39]

George, you have a way of showing and making your turnings so simple that I often say I'll have a go at that tomorrow ,and even though it never happens you instill an urge to have a go . Thank you for that I have enough to keep me going for years when I get going again. REgards Boysie

 

[Doug B]

Great set of photo`s George.
Thanks for taking the time to post them.
I really like the nut & bolt, it looks excellent.

 

[cornucopia]

Excellent George, bet your old man is made up with that.

Can you explain how Dave cut the hexagonal for you with his router? Am very interested in how it is done.

I wil be giving it to him for fathers day- Dave held it in some sort of jig and "turned a handle" apparently

 

[RATWOOD]

Excellent George
I wish I could do thread chasing

 

[Jenx]

Brilliant.

Excellent to see the WIP.
8) 8) 8) 8)

 

[DaveL]

As George said I machined the box wood into the hexagon for this and as you have asked how it was done a few pictures of the process.
I used a Trend Router Lathe, this is a some what cumbersome device to use, compare to a normal lathe and obviously did not sell well as Trend have stopped selling them. I bought mine from B&Q at half price when the stock was being cleared, I had looked at them before but the £150 price tag had put me off. There appears to be a number of these selling on Ebay for £100 + which does surprise me.
Anyway here is the basic set-up:

The wood to be machined is held between centres, the 'head stock' end has a multi point on it to hold it from freely rotating. I did not have a lathe big enough to spin the blank at the time, if I were to do anything like this again I would turn the blank to a cylinder before mounting it on the router lathe. So with a big cutter in the router I rough cut to a cylinder, by lowering the cutter and turning the blank by hand and then moving the router along the blank.
The steel cable in the picture is only used when cutting barely twists, moving the router as the blank rotates. To cut the hexagon I used the index ring and slid the router along on each of the indexed moves.

Here you can just see the start of the corners.

In this picture I am almost there.

A couple more fine cuts to get a better finish.

The blank ready to post back to George, for the real magic to be worked.

 

[TEP]

Mornin' Dave, many thanks for that. Never occurred to me to use a Trend. #-o #-o :-k I was trying to figure out how to make the hex by hand, dare say it could be done but don't know if I could manage it. :lol: :lol:

Again thanks for the explanation.

 

[wizer]

you could easily build a platform over the lathe. If you lathe has an indexing system then even easier. If you didn't want to use a router then a hand plane and a few Red Bulls would get it done

 

[mark sanger]

Great work George. Good to see the way you made it.

Thank you for sharing.

Take care

 

[user 5053]

A nice fiendish piece of work in the traditions of the old bone and ivory grubbers. I've got a book by the great Bill Jones - bone and Ivory turning legend with chess pieces made from 3 bits that screwed together. Box is a beautiful wood to turn but the general public don't quite appreciate its qualities.