Christmas presents?

If I come across a nice bit of wood I often knock up a candlestick or two ( making a hand-turned matched pair is fun ). An oil or wax finish looks best ( I think ), as long as you make a proper job of the surface.

Small wooden place mats are simple to make, and easy enough to turn up a matching set. An oil based finish will keep them clean.

Custom torches make for a nice, personal pressie...get a small, cheapo ali torch and make a replacement body ( titanium sounds cool ).

Fridge magnets are always handy - and the trick here is to make sure you use quite a powerful magnet ( I'm always cursing the ones that drop off, usually depositing whatever was held on by them into the dogs' water bowl ). The magnets can be Araldited into a custom-made case. Best one I ever made is about 3" diameter, using the coil magnet from a small speaker. Turned up a lovely Rosewood case for it. It's that powerful it's a bit like Arkwright's till in 'Open All Hours'...you have to be a bit nimble when sticking new bits of paper under it!

Regards,

The magnets from old hard disc drives are extraordinarily strong. If you drop them down an aluminium channel they'll fall slowly due to eddy-current damping.

-adrian

Indeed! but how do you get them off their backing plates?

(actually - how do you seperate them once they have met ....

The magnets in the doohickey of a microwave oven are quite strong too (though not by comparison to hard drive magnets).

I did hear of some super-strong magnets wich would explode if left to come together, but I can't find a ref.

surprising to see and do - might even be a crissy pressie in there somewhere :)

I use the sharp edge of a knfe. Place it at the seam and tap the back of the blade with a hammer. Usually a little bit of the plating comes off the magnet.

Grip them between your fingers and slide them apart, rather than trying to pull them apart.

In the Magnetron? Never ripped one apart.

They won't explode, but can break if allowed to come together violently. They are rather brittle.

Good winnings at bar bets too. EVERYONE knows that magnets don't stick to aluminum! It's good humor to hear the explanations why it falls so slow, too!

Cheers Trevor Jones

Cheers all!

Fridge magnets, ace idea! I just happen to have a handy source of hard drives and their little magnets.

Am I going to need different cutting tools to turn brass? I've only got the basic TCT set.

thanks,

Zed

Trevor J>

Zed, Brass tools have no top rake. Ive successfully used just brand new HSS tool bits, without grinding them at all, though the 90 degree corner does limit what you can do , as you have to set the tool at an angle to give the 'tip' some clearence. not a big job to grind the front off but I was in a hurry, and needed to make just 1 cut.... basically just grind the sides a bit to make the included angle less than 90 degrees dont touch the top face and set at center height. speeds a bit faster than for steel, top speed on my harrison, though that is only about 600 rpm, YMMV

Dave

--Howzabout something like this?

Hi Ed!

(cool nick, BTW).

That's a interesting doohickey being built there! Somewhat beyond my level of skill at this time, but I shall have a look see for the book, try my local liberry.

I should as a pleased as a pleased thing when I can build one of them & would certainly be posting some pics on here!

Cheers,

Zed