Hi,
Here’s an unusual but interesting project I did a few years ago. Being south facing our bungalow receives brilliant sunshine through the front windows. In order to control this I installed three 4’ long heavy duty roller blinds each operated by its own cord drive.
As the large sofa is positioned centrally it was difficult reaching over to operate the central blind so I did a bit of thinking about how to resolve this. It was only a small problem but one that turned into a nice project.
At that time I owned a giant Dominion woodturning lathe and also a Colchester Triumph engineering lathe so it wasn’t difficult to dream up a line shaft with an operating mechanism.
First job was to turn new solid wooden rollers at four feet long each from Meranti. I thought this would be a doddle but it proved a lot more difficult than expected. With the first blank mounted between centers in the Dominion I found the timber to flex a great deal whilst working in the center. To overcome this I rigged up a traveling steady to mount on the cross carriage as the lathe was thus equipped. Now it was easy to wind the cross carriage along the bed taking light cuts reducing the square blank to round. Three of these were turned then deeply end bored at ½” Dia to accept stainless steel shafting. Two stainless steel couplings were then through bored at ½” Dia on axis and drilled and tapped to accept a pair of grub screws.
Heavy mild steel mounting blocks were cut to length and bored at ½” Dia these being used as pillow block plain bearings; for securing to the upper window frame steel lugs were welded to the bearings and drilled to accept wood screws.
Bearing and coupling arrangement.
Next job was the winding mechanism (crank assembly). A bit more welding produced the steel mounting and a pair of pulleys was turned in the Triumph lathe to suit a “V” drive belt. The bottom pulley was bored to accept a spindle allowing the pulley to revolve around the fixed spindle and a short crank was made with a nice revolving brass handle this crank being secured to the pulley face after drilling and tapping to accept a pair of 10mm set screws. The spindle was end drilled and tapped to accept a 10mm set screw retaining the pulley in position.
Crank and drive belt assembly.
A simple spring loaded friction brake was added to prevent the blinds from crashing down then the top pulley was bored at ½” Dia; drilled and tapped to accept a pair of grub screws this being the fixed drive pulley at the end of the line shaft.
Close up of crank mechanism.
The mild steel components were then spray painted and the entire assembly was fitted to the window frames. Getting the line shaft into perfect alignment was a bit fiddly bit I had allowed for some adjustment in the pillow blocks; When I knew everything worked as planned I removed the three rollers and transferred the blind material to them taking a lot of care to ensure each piece of blind material was accurately aligned allowing it to coil perfectly.
After many years use the crank assembly looks a bit tatty and could benefit from a touch of paint but the project has proved to be a complete success. When seen operated for the first time visitors are always impressed and of course it solved the problem of stretching over to adjust the center blind; all three blinds are raised or lowed together from the single crank. I find lathes most useful machines and mine pay for themselves with all these little projects which are made from nothing more than offcuts of timber and metal.
I hope this is of interest and I’d like to hear from other members who own lathes as to unusual projects they do.
Kind regards, Col.
All three blinds adjustable from a single crank.
Here’s an unusual but interesting project I did a few years ago. Being south facing our bungalow receives brilliant sunshine through the front windows. In order to control this I installed three 4’ long heavy duty roller blinds each operated by its own cord drive.
As the large sofa is positioned centrally it was difficult reaching over to operate the central blind so I did a bit of thinking about how to resolve this. It was only a small problem but one that turned into a nice project.
At that time I owned a giant Dominion woodturning lathe and also a Colchester Triumph engineering lathe so it wasn’t difficult to dream up a line shaft with an operating mechanism.
First job was to turn new solid wooden rollers at four feet long each from Meranti. I thought this would be a doddle but it proved a lot more difficult than expected. With the first blank mounted between centers in the Dominion I found the timber to flex a great deal whilst working in the center. To overcome this I rigged up a traveling steady to mount on the cross carriage as the lathe was thus equipped. Now it was easy to wind the cross carriage along the bed taking light cuts reducing the square blank to round. Three of these were turned then deeply end bored at ½” Dia to accept stainless steel shafting. Two stainless steel couplings were then through bored at ½” Dia on axis and drilled and tapped to accept a pair of grub screws.
Heavy mild steel mounting blocks were cut to length and bored at ½” Dia these being used as pillow block plain bearings; for securing to the upper window frame steel lugs were welded to the bearings and drilled to accept wood screws.
Bearing and coupling arrangement.
Next job was the winding mechanism (crank assembly). A bit more welding produced the steel mounting and a pair of pulleys was turned in the Triumph lathe to suit a “V” drive belt. The bottom pulley was bored to accept a spindle allowing the pulley to revolve around the fixed spindle and a short crank was made with a nice revolving brass handle this crank being secured to the pulley face after drilling and tapping to accept a pair of 10mm set screws. The spindle was end drilled and tapped to accept a 10mm set screw retaining the pulley in position.
Crank and drive belt assembly.
A simple spring loaded friction brake was added to prevent the blinds from crashing down then the top pulley was bored at ½” Dia; drilled and tapped to accept a pair of grub screws this being the fixed drive pulley at the end of the line shaft.
Close up of crank mechanism.
The mild steel components were then spray painted and the entire assembly was fitted to the window frames. Getting the line shaft into perfect alignment was a bit fiddly bit I had allowed for some adjustment in the pillow blocks; When I knew everything worked as planned I removed the three rollers and transferred the blind material to them taking a lot of care to ensure each piece of blind material was accurately aligned allowing it to coil perfectly.
After many years use the crank assembly looks a bit tatty and could benefit from a touch of paint but the project has proved to be a complete success. When seen operated for the first time visitors are always impressed and of course it solved the problem of stretching over to adjust the center blind; all three blinds are raised or lowed together from the single crank. I find lathes most useful machines and mine pay for themselves with all these little projects which are made from nothing more than offcuts of timber and metal.
I hope this is of interest and I’d like to hear from other members who own lathes as to unusual projects they do.
Kind regards, Col.
All three blinds adjustable from a single crank.
Happiness is a wreck of a cabinet to restore.
I remember concocting some drive electronics for a friend at school who chose that as her GCSE Technology project - just a couple of relays and a light sensor IIRC. I'm interested in seeing more of the bearing blocks - would a shot from above clarify how they are secured to the window frame, and what sort of bearing arrangement is in there - what's a "plain bearing" in this context? I guess that miniature ball bearing races might be a little OTT for this, but they are cheap and plentiful (I used to rescue them from old DLT tape cartridges that we use for backing up servers).
