First lathe project - replacment knobs for my router fence

As I talked about in my post about the die I made in my machine shop class, I mentioned I spent the whole class working on the mill and only had one
night left to play with the lathe.
Last night was the last class and I got to work on the lathe and made two replacement knobs for my router table with the help of Alex the shop assistant showing me how to work the lathe.
Here's the result of my first night playing with a lathe...
http://newsreader.com/router_fence_knobs1.jpg
http://newsreader.com/router_fence_knobs2.jpg
The first picture is of the two knobs I made and then powder coated today along with the old plastic T-handle knob which broke the first week I had the router table (many years ago).
The second picture is of the knob in use on the router table.
Because both the plastic handles broke I've never really been able to tighten down the fence as well as it needed to be. It was good enough that I never bothered to do anything about it, but always a pain because I had to be careful not to push too hard against the fence because of the danger it might move. I could have just picked up a couple of nuts and used a wrench on it but it was not bad enough to do that. But still, it's bugged me all these years that I had to deal with the broken handles.
I didn't get the knurling correct - still need to work on how to do a good job on that, but even with the poor job of that, it functions just fine for what I needed it to do.
Learning how to do these simple metalworking projects just totally changes my view of what I can build and fix now. It's just such a joy to have those knobs fixed and to know how to make these sorts of things. But now, I've got to add a basic lathe to my wish list and learn more about what you can do with it...
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Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com /
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OH NO!!!
You just contracted metal mangler's disease. There is no cure. Frequent purchase of new machine tools helps control the symptoms.
Karl " had the disease for 25 years now" Townsend
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I've had a serious tool addiction since I was very young. I just can't get enough of them. And now with my introduction to metal working, it's just opened the door for another endless list of items I just MUST HAVE NOW.... :)
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On 23 Jul 2008 22:01:56 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) quickly quoth:

Ditto here. I used to think I was a woodworker and metalworker. Now that I'm honest with myself, I'm referring to myself as "a tool collector who occasionally does decent woodworking and metalworking."
F*ck Pukey Ducks!
-- Imagination is more important than knowledge... Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
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On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:23:29 -0700, Larry Jaques

Otherwise known as an old phfart putterer like me. Gerry :-)} London, Canada
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On Jul 23, 4:29 pm, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:

...
Nice job!
This double-ended nut sorting tool is one of the most useful things I've made, and good practice. Note that some of the coarse threads are clipped to the minor diameter of the next larger size.
http://picasaweb.google.com/KB1DAL/HomeMadeMachines/photo#5168765927027495682
Jim Wilkins
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Yeah, cool idea. Nice set of projects. One more thing to try one day...

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Sent the link to the bandsaw mill to my brother. Thanks Karl
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Does he plan to make one? I've heard that trailer wheels and bearings work well, too. I grabbed the Kawasaki wheels from a friend who had crashed it. They already had a sprocket and he had burned the rear tire flat to the cords, the right shape for a bandsaw. The front tire was difficult to flatten to match.
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    [ ... ]

    Actually -- a bandsaw wheel should have a crown to cause the blade to walk to the center of the wheel's width. (The blade climbs up any slope on the wheel, so a crown will cause it to be self-centering.
    Enjoy,         DoN.
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Air pressure crowned the rear wheel nicely and I had much less trouble than I expected getting the blade to track. The front tire had angled sides and a rounded top, sort of like the metric thread profile. Coarse sandpaper on a 7" angle grinder took it down but not very fast. If you look for used wheels to make a sawmill, don't plan to reshape the tread too much.
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I bought the Harbor Freight guide and reworked it to fit a 2X6. I can't find it now to describe how but IIRC the moveable guide that won't move out quite far enough was replaced with carriage screws, head inward.
My previous version of a sawmill was a woodworking bandsaw turned on its side and mounted on caster wheels so it rolled down a track. That saw was underpowered but the general idea was sound. The tracks were on the sides of my trailer. I'd load a log into the bed and crank up the tongue jack to make the saw run downhill. A roller under the lower blade guide ran on the upright face of the log to resist the cutting force, otherwise the log and saw would vibrate badly.
People who have bought those saws often will set up on your woodlot and cut for so much a board foot. The commercial ones often have much better log handling attachments. Once the logs are squared into cants they don't roll, which may create handling problems. I used a large- wheeled shop crane pulled by my tractor to move them around and a set of 12' shear legs, which requires a lot of rigging gear, to load the sawmill.
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Interesting idea. I think I read about that being done somewhere. He'd rather saw it himself.
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On Jul 23, 4:29 pm, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:

Feed much(!) harder on cross feed. The stock material should be noticably bending away from the knurl (unless you're using a center in the taistock).
Regards,
Robin
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snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Yeah, I didn't really push it that hard (don't want to over-force anything on the first day you play with it). This lathe also has a problem with the cross feed where it was extremely hard to turn the cross feed crank making it even harder to tell how much force was actually being applied to to the part.
The stock material was 1 1/8 aluminum rod (don't know what type of aluminum but probably something simple and cheap like 6061) with maybe 6 inches sticking out the chuck. No center in the tailstock supporting it.
We were also using the power feed to move the tool across the piece and I think it was probably set too fast. I was told there are charts you can find to tell you how fast to set these things for different types and sizes of material to get optimal results.
I of course would love to go back and spend a day experimenting with it to figure out for myself what works, but sadly, the class is over so I don't have access to the lathe anymore.

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On Jul 23, 10:05 pm, snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:

Blah blah blah. Just push harder ;-)
Regards,
Robin
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snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

:) Next time, I'll try it!
Shit, makes me want to go out and order a lathe just so I can figure this one thing out! A few clicks of the mouse and I could have one here in days! Damn, it's just so tempting. :)

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snipped-for-privacy@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:

DO IT DOO IT DOOO IT!
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