Frank Pellow
Member
- Messages
- 2,332
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
(part 1 of 2)
Sunday Dec 4:
I started to make yo-yos for three children on my Christmas list but ran into a snag. With luck, they will be finished tomorrow. Lee Valley sells a kit (catalogue number 88K161) that can be used to make a very good yo-yo and one needs a lathe for the project.
Mack Cameron agreed to let me use his lathe today and Don McFarland his neighbour in Brooklin agreed to help to train me.
I have not used a lathe since high school and the lathe that I used then was a metal lathe.
In preparation, I cut blocks from four different types of hardwood –cherry, walnut, maple, and jatoba then drilled a hole (35mm by 10mm) into each.
A brass hub from the kit was epoxied into each hole then eack block was cut roughly into a circle on my tabletop bandsaw:
Here is a photo of all the sides that I prepared before visiting Mack:
Mack started turning but soon let me take over:
I found the turning to be quite straightforward and made fewer mistakes than I expected to. After turning the side to the shape and size that I wanted, I sanded the wood starting at 150 grit and working right up to 600 grit right on the lathe (at a slower speed).
The walnut sides looked really good:
But, with the axel mechanism in place, they were too far apart:
What was the problem?
Upon closer examination, Don and I figured out that I had glued all the hub mechanisms into the wood blocks upside-down:
There was nothing I could do except to split all the blocks apart with a chisel to extract the hubs
clean, the dried epoxy off the hubs as best I could, make new blocks, and glue the hubs into those blocks with the proper orientation. I did all that at home this evening and will be going back to Mack’s place tomorrow in order to try again.
Sunday Dec 4:
I started to make yo-yos for three children on my Christmas list but ran into a snag. With luck, they will be finished tomorrow. Lee Valley sells a kit (catalogue number 88K161) that can be used to make a very good yo-yo and one needs a lathe for the project.
Mack Cameron agreed to let me use his lathe today and Don McFarland his neighbour in Brooklin agreed to help to train me.
I have not used a lathe since high school and the lathe that I used then was a metal lathe.
In preparation, I cut blocks from four different types of hardwood –cherry, walnut, maple, and jatoba then drilled a hole (35mm by 10mm) into each.
A brass hub from the kit was epoxied into each hole then eack block was cut roughly into a circle on my tabletop bandsaw:
Here is a photo of all the sides that I prepared before visiting Mack:
Mack started turning but soon let me take over:
I found the turning to be quite straightforward and made fewer mistakes than I expected to. After turning the side to the shape and size that I wanted, I sanded the wood starting at 150 grit and working right up to 600 grit right on the lathe (at a slower speed).
The walnut sides looked really good:
But, with the axel mechanism in place, they were too far apart:
What was the problem?
Upon closer examination, Don and I figured out that I had glued all the hub mechanisms into the wood blocks upside-down:
There was nothing I could do except to split all the blocks apart with a chisel to extract the hubs
clean, the dried epoxy off the hubs as best I could, make new blocks, and glue the hubs into those blocks with the proper orientation. I did all that at home this evening and will be going back to Mack’s place tomorrow in order to try again.