Homemade Thread Chaser

Thread chasing turning chisels are typically rather expensive. But if you have a metal tap and die set, making your own is not out of the question.

By taking a nut that matches your tap and die, and cutting out an opening on one side the width of the thread chaser, and a notch on the opposite side to act as a hinge point.

Some food for thought.

The re-re-conceptualised bowl

Otherwise known as try, try and try again.

The timber of this bowl made a recent appearance here, after being bought back from the discard pile (well, not exactly: like many woodworkers I rarely have a discard pile, I have an “offcuts, but I’m sure there will be a future job to use that scrap of timber” pile) – a bowl blank (some kind of plum) that didn’t go well the first time I tried it, and the recent attempt was going really nicely till I blew the base out. So I tried again, this time turning it to quite a different shape from first envisaged in the hope of getting some result that would at least showcase just how beautiful the timber is.

This time, I took a bit of inspiration from the “Classic” router bit profile, with both concave and convex features, a hint of “Roman Ogee” and a sharp dividing line between them.

I used the same trick as I did on the previous bowl of friction burning the rim to stand these features out. This time, I turned the outside for shape, including a foot to be gripped by a contracting chuck, then reversed the bowl and hollowed it. This too mirrored the outside, with a sharp change in curvature, and a friction burn to accent it.

The inside was finished, as was the outside top of the rim, so that when the bowl was again reversed, and there would not be any way of mounting it again, that these areas had been finished.

The bowl was reversed using the Mini Cole Jaws, and the optional retaining clips, which held the bowl securely for turning and finishing the base.

The completed bowl, about 3″ diameter, with EEE and Ubeaut Glow finish, and friction burnt accents.

The base, in two lighting conditions showing different characters in the timber finish.

So another interesting little project, all done outboard (45 degrees) on the Nova DVR XP lathe from Carbatec, using the SuperNova2 chuck with 45mm jaws, the G3 chuck with Mini Cole jaws, and a selection of Hamlet turning chisels (bullnose scraper and German spindle gouge).

Primary shaping was done at 1000RPM, finishing turning at 2000RPM, and finishing at 3000RPM (the beauty of variable speed lathes- you use the different speeds because it is easy to set the speed for the different roles). While applying the fricton polish, you really get to appreciate the DVR motor and you can hear it loading up, maintaining a perfectly constant speed irrespective of load. The finish is all Ubeaut friction polishes – if you haven’t investigated these before, they are a great Australian product (available worldwide), and you can see the results they give.

Tips my Dad says

From Makezine

A 4yr old project design story

A very cool story about a dad’s journey with his 4 yr old who is designing a project. Found from the Wood Whisperer’s Twitter feed.

Wood Tape

Definitely worth a read!