17-06-2011, 01:58 PM
Hi,
Oh boy Alan if only we had a warehouse each. I'd love your Drummond if I had the space thank you; of course though had I the space I would never have parted with both my big lathes in the first place. Imagine a lovely big warm well lit warehouse full of all the old machines; our wives would think we had left home as we would be like kids let loose in a sweet shop. I wonder if the council will let me build a big warehouse in our back garden after all our next door neighbours built a big 4 bed roomed house in theirs.
Is my memory correct Alan in thinking it was the Drummond you had the bed "ways" ground? I also agree with you that one off turning is a slow job but the old methods just can't be beat for this kind of work; before retiring the place I worked at had lots of CNC machines plus robots but in one department alone there were two centre lathe turners employed full time. It's no fun to watch a CNC get out of control through a fault or to watch the robot painter become bored with life and start to spray the walls and ceiling. Modern technology is very useful for mass production but let me play with my toys any time and use the skills I learned so many years ago.
Can we entice you into squeezing a nice little lathe into your shed Jamie; I'm sure you would soon find a great deal of use for it.
I'll look forward to seeing your work finished with Danish Oil uc182. I'm pleased you enjoyed your visits to the sawmills; these places fascinate me and I've seen giant sawmills in operation in America on “The New Yankee Workshop”; these sawmills put millions of board feet of timber through in a week. I love the smell of freshly cut timber and I always enjoyed going into the timber department which I was in charge of at work to get my daily fix; it used to set me up for the day.
Thanks for the kind words and I'm sure you too will soon be turning out excellent items as all it takes is practice; I used to poke tools into timber spinning on a lathe at first and had many nasty catches and dig ins but eventually I grasped what worked and what didn't and now woodturning gives me much pleasure.
Your saw bench is a beauty and will give you many years service and at such a good price. The cost of such machines is absolutely minimal once you start producing work in fact all my machines are what I would consider totally free of charge due to the vast amount of money they have saved me over the years. I'm delighted to see that your saw bench is powered through a belt driven motor as these are very easy and cheap to maintain unlike the saw benches with the low centre motor having the blade fitted directly to the motor shaft; such motors are very expensive to replace; I know because the company I worked at used to make these in large numbers. It's good to see the riving knife and crown guard are in place and for your safety never try running material through the saw without both fitted or you will end up with missiles being fired at you.
A bandsaw and planer thicknesser are extremely useful to have and the wider the planer the better. Regarding the jack planes you mention; I have a Stanley Bailey hand plane still like brand new in its original box sitting in the bench in the garage; I've owned this plane for over twenty years and perhaps use it once a year. Power planes are very cheap and much easier to use than a hand plane; I was looking in the Screwfix catalogue this morning and a power plane can be bought brand new for around £35; using a power plane takes practice and of course being a power tool commands respect regarding safety but frees the user from worrying about grain direction in fact many hard woods such as Sapele have interlocking and alternating grain making planing by hand methods a nightmare whereas a power plane will leave a nice flat surface without ripping lumps out of the surface. Over thirty years ago I bought an industrial ELU power plane this is a powerful plane and I did use it quite a lot at first but it now resides in its original box alongside the Bailey plane in the bench; the ELU has never had a blade change or even the blades changed over showing how little it has been used. I also bought a brand new Stanley rebating plane which has never been used in fact I haven't seen it for years but it too is in one of the benches in its as new box. The point of this is that it is easy to fall into the trap of buying tools that are expensive only seldom to use them.
The two hand planes I use regularly are a small Stanley shoulder plane which cost about £20 thirty years ago and is absolutely delightful and also a small Stanley block plane. I find having my 10" planer thicknesser virtually renders hand planes obsolete for my projects.
Thanks for adding such a wealth of information as usual David and your comments about working for less than the minimum wage are bang on. One off items such as turned bowls would I fear seldom pay for themselves let alone show a profit; one point worth mentioning regarding turned work is the possibility of rejects or damaged turnings due a catch or dig in whilst turning. Items such as small trinket or jewelry boxes would lend them to being produced in quantity as jigs could be set up for repetition cutting of parts also a lot of the finishing could be completed whilst the material was in board form such as after planing as it could be quickly sanded and save a great amount of time; for example it is much easier to sand a flat board rather than make the board into a box then sand the inside of the box.
I find a great aid to be nothing more than cheap drawing paper and a pencil; such items are available from Poundland; it is better to work out mistakes on paper and throw paper away rather than make mistakes on the actual timber which is expensive. If I was running a batch of anything in expensive hardwood I would consider using cheap softwood for test pieces.
Jigs are extremely useful and many jigs can be made from offcuts; they don’t need to look pretty but they do need making with care; work needs planning out and cutting sequences determined in order to obtain the best yield from material because any offcuts or waste directly affect profit. On machines; stops are used for cross cutting and fences for ripping setting for each operation then running the entire batch through but most importantly ensuring by cutting a test piece that the size is correct because although machines save a great deal of labour they can quickly produce a whole pile of waste.
The wooden box shown in this thread took me many days to make it being a one off but I could have run a hundred or even a thousand of these boxes off quite quickly once the design and parts dimensions were established. I designed a large steel bench whilst at work for use in pallet making; the bench had four adjustable arms for the bearer spacing and stops to two sides for top board location. The sawn softwood was purchased by the wagon load and a very old Bursgreen radial arm saw set up with long benches; the saw was fitted with adjustable stops and enough timber was cross cut to produce the batch of pallets of one size; the timber was stacked up to the maximum cut capacity of the saw and cut in multiples with a single pull of the saw then the entire stack was advanced to the stop and cut again; the cut timber was neatly stacked on pallets and a hand pallet truck used to move it around as required. With the steel bench adjusted taking minutes the pallets were assembled using nail guns the guns being counter balanced suspended from an over head runner guide. The pallets for general use were two way pallets and sizes ranged from very small 12” square up to Euro size. The smallest pallets could be assembled and nailed doing two a minute. With good planning it’s not difficult to produce in bulk.
Assuming a batch of these boxes had been made all to the one design they could be sold at multiple outlets such as gift shops or even on eBay at a “Buy now” price. These are just a few ideas as I’ve been in industry mass producing items from blankets to electric motors for many years.
Go for it Joe and spoil yourself; buy a nice metalworking lathe and set it up in your spare room; it will give you endless hours of pleasure.
Regarding measurements I too use both imperial and metric; I find my cheap digital vernier caliper to be a most useful bit of kit and it gets used most times when I’m in the garage; it measures both imperial and metric at the push of a button. It’s worth mentioning that old fashioned British made machinery will be made to imperial measurements and most likely be held together with Whitworth threaded fasteners such as bolts and set screws. Imperial sized bearings are still readily available and bearings are surprisingly quite cheap in the smaller sizes.
I’ve been sitting at my bench in the workshop using a fret saw to cut sheet brass and have ended up feeling frozen so I’m warming myself up sitting at the computer where it is slightly warmer; putting the clocks forward and calling it British Summer Time doesn’t warm my workshop or garage up.
Kind regards, Col.
Oh boy Alan if only we had a warehouse each. I'd love your Drummond if I had the space thank you; of course though had I the space I would never have parted with both my big lathes in the first place. Imagine a lovely big warm well lit warehouse full of all the old machines; our wives would think we had left home as we would be like kids let loose in a sweet shop. I wonder if the council will let me build a big warehouse in our back garden after all our next door neighbours built a big 4 bed roomed house in theirs.
Is my memory correct Alan in thinking it was the Drummond you had the bed "ways" ground? I also agree with you that one off turning is a slow job but the old methods just can't be beat for this kind of work; before retiring the place I worked at had lots of CNC machines plus robots but in one department alone there were two centre lathe turners employed full time. It's no fun to watch a CNC get out of control through a fault or to watch the robot painter become bored with life and start to spray the walls and ceiling. Modern technology is very useful for mass production but let me play with my toys any time and use the skills I learned so many years ago.
Can we entice you into squeezing a nice little lathe into your shed Jamie; I'm sure you would soon find a great deal of use for it.
I'll look forward to seeing your work finished with Danish Oil uc182. I'm pleased you enjoyed your visits to the sawmills; these places fascinate me and I've seen giant sawmills in operation in America on “The New Yankee Workshop”; these sawmills put millions of board feet of timber through in a week. I love the smell of freshly cut timber and I always enjoyed going into the timber department which I was in charge of at work to get my daily fix; it used to set me up for the day.
Thanks for the kind words and I'm sure you too will soon be turning out excellent items as all it takes is practice; I used to poke tools into timber spinning on a lathe at first and had many nasty catches and dig ins but eventually I grasped what worked and what didn't and now woodturning gives me much pleasure.
Your saw bench is a beauty and will give you many years service and at such a good price. The cost of such machines is absolutely minimal once you start producing work in fact all my machines are what I would consider totally free of charge due to the vast amount of money they have saved me over the years. I'm delighted to see that your saw bench is powered through a belt driven motor as these are very easy and cheap to maintain unlike the saw benches with the low centre motor having the blade fitted directly to the motor shaft; such motors are very expensive to replace; I know because the company I worked at used to make these in large numbers. It's good to see the riving knife and crown guard are in place and for your safety never try running material through the saw without both fitted or you will end up with missiles being fired at you.
A bandsaw and planer thicknesser are extremely useful to have and the wider the planer the better. Regarding the jack planes you mention; I have a Stanley Bailey hand plane still like brand new in its original box sitting in the bench in the garage; I've owned this plane for over twenty years and perhaps use it once a year. Power planes are very cheap and much easier to use than a hand plane; I was looking in the Screwfix catalogue this morning and a power plane can be bought brand new for around £35; using a power plane takes practice and of course being a power tool commands respect regarding safety but frees the user from worrying about grain direction in fact many hard woods such as Sapele have interlocking and alternating grain making planing by hand methods a nightmare whereas a power plane will leave a nice flat surface without ripping lumps out of the surface. Over thirty years ago I bought an industrial ELU power plane this is a powerful plane and I did use it quite a lot at first but it now resides in its original box alongside the Bailey plane in the bench; the ELU has never had a blade change or even the blades changed over showing how little it has been used. I also bought a brand new Stanley rebating plane which has never been used in fact I haven't seen it for years but it too is in one of the benches in its as new box. The point of this is that it is easy to fall into the trap of buying tools that are expensive only seldom to use them.
The two hand planes I use regularly are a small Stanley shoulder plane which cost about £20 thirty years ago and is absolutely delightful and also a small Stanley block plane. I find having my 10" planer thicknesser virtually renders hand planes obsolete for my projects.
Thanks for adding such a wealth of information as usual David and your comments about working for less than the minimum wage are bang on. One off items such as turned bowls would I fear seldom pay for themselves let alone show a profit; one point worth mentioning regarding turned work is the possibility of rejects or damaged turnings due a catch or dig in whilst turning. Items such as small trinket or jewelry boxes would lend them to being produced in quantity as jigs could be set up for repetition cutting of parts also a lot of the finishing could be completed whilst the material was in board form such as after planing as it could be quickly sanded and save a great amount of time; for example it is much easier to sand a flat board rather than make the board into a box then sand the inside of the box.
I find a great aid to be nothing more than cheap drawing paper and a pencil; such items are available from Poundland; it is better to work out mistakes on paper and throw paper away rather than make mistakes on the actual timber which is expensive. If I was running a batch of anything in expensive hardwood I would consider using cheap softwood for test pieces.
Jigs are extremely useful and many jigs can be made from offcuts; they don’t need to look pretty but they do need making with care; work needs planning out and cutting sequences determined in order to obtain the best yield from material because any offcuts or waste directly affect profit. On machines; stops are used for cross cutting and fences for ripping setting for each operation then running the entire batch through but most importantly ensuring by cutting a test piece that the size is correct because although machines save a great deal of labour they can quickly produce a whole pile of waste.
The wooden box shown in this thread took me many days to make it being a one off but I could have run a hundred or even a thousand of these boxes off quite quickly once the design and parts dimensions were established. I designed a large steel bench whilst at work for use in pallet making; the bench had four adjustable arms for the bearer spacing and stops to two sides for top board location. The sawn softwood was purchased by the wagon load and a very old Bursgreen radial arm saw set up with long benches; the saw was fitted with adjustable stops and enough timber was cross cut to produce the batch of pallets of one size; the timber was stacked up to the maximum cut capacity of the saw and cut in multiples with a single pull of the saw then the entire stack was advanced to the stop and cut again; the cut timber was neatly stacked on pallets and a hand pallet truck used to move it around as required. With the steel bench adjusted taking minutes the pallets were assembled using nail guns the guns being counter balanced suspended from an over head runner guide. The pallets for general use were two way pallets and sizes ranged from very small 12” square up to Euro size. The smallest pallets could be assembled and nailed doing two a minute. With good planning it’s not difficult to produce in bulk.
Assuming a batch of these boxes had been made all to the one design they could be sold at multiple outlets such as gift shops or even on eBay at a “Buy now” price. These are just a few ideas as I’ve been in industry mass producing items from blankets to electric motors for many years.
Go for it Joe and spoil yourself; buy a nice metalworking lathe and set it up in your spare room; it will give you endless hours of pleasure.
Regarding measurements I too use both imperial and metric; I find my cheap digital vernier caliper to be a most useful bit of kit and it gets used most times when I’m in the garage; it measures both imperial and metric at the push of a button. It’s worth mentioning that old fashioned British made machinery will be made to imperial measurements and most likely be held together with Whitworth threaded fasteners such as bolts and set screws. Imperial sized bearings are still readily available and bearings are surprisingly quite cheap in the smaller sizes.
I’ve been sitting at my bench in the workshop using a fret saw to cut sheet brass and have ended up feeling frozen so I’m warming myself up sitting at the computer where it is slightly warmer; putting the clocks forward and calling it British Summer Time doesn’t warm my workshop or garage up.
Kind regards, Col.
