Any way to get turned results without a lathe?

O

Omega Leather Works

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Jun 13, 2007
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Hey guys, so I'm trying to turn micarta to make some pin stock. I don't have a lathe.

So far I've tried chucking it up in my drill press, which has worked before when making wood lanyard beads, but with this I can't seem to put enough pressure on it to do anything to it, even using aggressive (80 grit), quality wood working sandpaper. I've tried doing it by hand, but I know that I can't really good, even, cylindrical results this way. Lastly, I've tried the disk sander, which has gotten the best results by far. Still, the results aren't good enough.

I know it's a long shot, but I'm wondering if anyone has any advice or ideas.

I've considered trying to use a plastic straw as a mold to cast some cloth and resin. How does that sound? Any advice on materials to do this?

Thanks as always.

Anthony
 
Btw, with the beads I drilled the hole through the piece of wood, took out the bit, used another, slightly larger bit to fit into the hole, then chucked the bit/bead and held paper to it to create the bead. I don't have the lateral strength of the bit to lean on in this case.
 
Hey man, shoot me a PM, I may be able to help ya out.
 
Thank you Damian for your offer! I really do appreciate it.

I should have mentioned that this isn't real micarta, but home made stuff. It's actually pretty tough it seems, but if it simply won't work, I do have some scraps of real micarta that I can try with.
 
How long are the pins you are trying to make? Could you chuck the pieces up in a cordless drill and turn them with your grinder running?
 
A lathe tool held in a drill press vice and a work piece in the drill chuck. With care, you can turn light cuts in phenolic in a drill press.
 
Cut a square piece and knock the corners off on your grinder to make it roughly octagonal. Then put it in the chuck of your handheld drill and hold it flat against the platen of your grinder with both the drill and grinder running. That should round it out into a rod quickly. You may need to put a little pressure on it with a push stick near the end of the rod or you will grind the end closest to the drill down the a smaller diameter because it is a little flexible.
 
Thanks for the vid's count never even would of thought of that, pretty simple and effective.
 
i did liek ofthers have said chucking in drill press and putting a steel bit in a travarcing vice

supergrit has some kind of drillpres into lathe kit thing but i never looked reall close since i have both wood and metal lathe
 
Jastab said:
Why not just buy micarta pin stock? I know I've seen it online somewhere...
Click to expand...

Striggy and some others myself somewhat included like to make things for ourselves if we can. I kind of have the mindset of why buy it if I can make it, and say I made almost every piece of that. Now he has been making his own mycarta scales so making pinstock with the same materials would be much better IMO
 
Yeah, I thought about buying a stick, but I just want to make it. I have two colors and I think it would look pretty cool.

I don't have a cordless, but I do have a corded drill, and the press. I'm definitely going to try all of these until I find something that works.

Btw, I fully intended to reply last night but I got the 2014 Grizzly catalog yesterday... I had no idea they had such an enormous catalog and got caught up reading it for hours. :D

As an aside, they happen to have a lathe kit for handheld drills. Reminds me of the angle grinder 2x72 that someone posted the other day. The lathe is like $30 or something (iirc). Anyone have one, or seen one? Seems like it might work for pen turning and things like what I'm doing now.
 
Take a board large enough to bolt to your drill press work platform and put a bolt right through the middle with a nut on the top side to tighten it. Head side down, thread side sticking up an inch or so above the nut. Sharpen the end of the thread side into a point. Then drill holes in the board that will allow bolting it to your press work table. This will be your tailstock.

Take your micarta and cut it as close to finished size as possible, knocking the corners off to make a rounded octagon. Chuck it up in the press between the chuck and sharpened bolt. Take the time to get it centered. If your work table cranks up and down, the easiest way is to run the table up until the bolt will chuck up and use that to center it. While its chucked, tighten the bolts that hold the whole 'tailstock' down. Then run it back down.

Once chucked up you can use a block and a vice as a tool rest if you want, or just go free hand and work it to shape as it spins.

I have used the pencil sharpener method with wood but never synthetics. Interesting to see if that works well. It is a great method for wood especially if you need a dowel in a wood species that is hard to find in dowel stock.

-Eric
 
If you really want to make your own why not adapt a rigid pipe thread collet from one of the power machines. It would give you adjustable diameters and five cutting teeth I think. A spin off the counts you tube video.

Edit, Google images shows four tool bits. But the size for a pin is going to be pretty small. Maybe it won't work.
 
Thanks guys!

Not perfect, but cool nonetheless, and I believe I can get it to work.

xUWZzZN.jpg
 
Thanks guys. Oh yeah, forgot that part. :D

I got it close using the hand drill and disk sander, then the drill and sandpaper. It was very close at that point, so I drilled the rod right through the drilled holes in the tang.

I was planning on trying every suggestion, but started with the easiest first and it worked.

Like I said, it's not perfect, but after glue up I'll fill any gaps with resin before sanding down. Should blend fine.
 
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