Lathe Question for the pipemakers

[BzzzzT]

I have a question for the pipemakers on the forum.

I am having delusions of pipemaking and want to make myself a C# set down the road.

I have worked on a wood lathe, a really nice Harrison Union Graduate. But have only superficial experience first hand with metal lathes and near no experience firsthand with boring out long pieces of wood.

I have been looking at some Atlas 8 X 18s and a Southbend 9 X 24.

Would either lathe be capable of operating a gun drill or the bed long enough in general. I am worried that the bed will not be long enough for boring a long piece of wood like the chanter. Could you feed the gundrill manually through the tailstock through a piece of brass tubing held by the collet or would you mount the gundrill on the tailstock.

Maybe I should not be thinking about gun drills and do the boring by hand through the tail stock???

Thanks!

- Jason

[Doogie]

I have a question for the pipemakers on the forum.

I am having delusions of pipemaking and want to make myself a C# set down the road.

I have worked on a wood lathe, a really nice Harrison Union Graduate. But have only superficial experience first hand with metal lathes and near no experience firsthand with boring out long pieces of wood.

I have been looking at some Atlas 8 X 18s and a Southbend 9 X 24.

Would either lathe be capable of operating a gun drill or the bed long enough in general. I am worried that the bed will not be long enough for boring a long piece of wood like the chanter. Could you feed the gundrill manually through the tailstock through a piece of brass tubing held by the collet or would you mount the gundrill on the tailstock.

Maybe I should not be thinking about gun drills and do the boring by hand through the tail stock???

Thanks!

- Jason

Yes you can use a gun drill manually by hand to bore long pieces. I've done it this way for years. You need a good stead rest, and a hollow tail stock with a bushing just slightly bigger than the o.d. of the gun drill. You will need to adapt your air hose fittings so it will attach into the hole in the butt of the gun drill. I turn the blank to be drilled on a wood lathe at 840 RPM's. Their are many methods for chanter boring, step bore from smallest to largest starting with a pilot hole, or step boring from largest to smallest as Tim Britton does. I have always step drilled from smallest to largest because my d-bits are made so they will center on the previous bore wile cutting. Cheers, Seth

[hpinson]

With a proper jig, you can use a gun drill with your wood lathe. You can build one fairly easily out of 6" x 1/2" oak plank. You make a box sort of arrangement that mounts flat on the ways, held in place with a bottom clamp similar to that of the tool rest or tailstock, with a long stout bolt, a washer, and a nut to hold it tight. Each vertical end of the jig has a hole, alinged perfectly to the spin center of the lathe, with no run-out, perhaps 3/4 or 1 inch in diameter, into which you place a wood, metal, or cork insert cylinder with a center hole drilled to the diameter of your gun-drill. Two of these serve as bridging rests to align and hand feed your gun drill or D bit drill into the work, which is held with a steady rest.

For a metal lathe, longer certainly makes life easier. While I can do a lot with my 18" Sherline, boring is very difficult, and setup takes a lot more creativity, than does a 30" or longer bed lathe. Go for the longer bed if you have the option. For me 24" is short, others have expressed the opinion that it is long enough. It's all in the rigging.

[billh]

The Southbend or the Atlas should be plenty big enough (with the disclaimer that I haven't actually used either model myself).

I use a 19" Myford ML7 for all boring, reaming, and turning (I've added an inverter to give a variable, and much wider, speed range - near-zero to 1600 RPM). Geoff W. uses a 19" Myford Super7, a very similar lathe, to bore by hand.

You do need a fixed steady for this. David Quinn uses a very nice design, a sealed ring bearing which fits around one slightly tapered end of the centered billet. He holds the gun drills in the tailstock, provided the bed is long enough, but pushes the tailstock forward by hand, not via the leadscrew. Hand-feeding the gun drill is fine, and with D bits you'll drive yourself mad if you don't hand feed, because you need to remove the bit and clear chips every 2 seconds or so (literally).

I find that the hollow tailstock just gets in the way when hand feeding; you can't really see what you're doing. No bushing is necessary, the trick to good alignment with gun drills (and for that matter, D bits) is a good pilot hole. Once you have that, further centering at the feed end is unhelpful. For the smallest gun drills, hand feeding can help you guide the bit down the center by feel - you can tell if for some reason it begins to wander, and adjust the angle at which you hold the drill slightly to minimize vibration.

When step boring, remember, drill large to small, and make piloting D bits for switching diameters. This is the other big key to good straight step boring. And of course, don't feed too fast. There's no reason to be in a hurry even though gun drills are capable of fast work. I find that a long hole that takes me 10 minutes is straighter than one that takes 5 - I would apply just enough pressure to overcome the air pressure.

Bill

[BzzzzT]

Thanks for the reply Seth, Harlow, and Bill. This really helps me get an idea of what I need.

Thank you for the detailed post Bill. It means a lot to get a good general overview by such an experienced pipemaker.

Now I just have to make a decision as to whether I will be able to even produce a set of pipes that is truly worth playing. Maybe I should just stick with reeds.

Thanks!

- Jason

[Doogie]

Now I just have to make a decision as to whether I will be able to even produce a set of pipes that is truly worth playing. Maybe I should just stick with reeds.

Thanks!

- Jason

Go for it,

Just an FYI from my personal experiences. If you ask many different pipe-makers how to do something, your going to get a lot of different answers, all of which may or may not work well for you. Don't take one persons advise as the end all/only way to do something. In the end take the advise and see what works best for you. Not everybody does everything the same, and what doesn't work for some works fine for others. Cheers, Seth

P.S. I do not hand-feed with d-bits. My tail stock has a lever that unlocks it from the bed and keeps it in a "neutral mode" which allows it to slide freely on the bed of the lathe. I insert the d-bit into the chuck and line it up on the bore. This keeps the d-bit in perfect alignment with the bore. Its just another way of doing things.

[Chris Bayley]

I have been looking at some Atlas 8 X 18s and a Southbend 9 X 24.

The 9" Southbend is a good choice as there are a good range of accesories available for it as it is the similar (if not identical) to the UK 9" Boxford AUD, BUD, CUD, ME10 series.

More info here http://www.lathes.co.uk/southbend9-inch/ & http://www.lathes.co.uk/boxford/index.html

Dave Williams used a 9" Southbend and I use a 9" Boxford AUD as well as a somewhat larger Boxford TR 11.30

Chris

[rorybbellows]

The Chinese are making great lathes these days, maybe you should ask at your local take-away!

RORY

[Elmek]

The Chinese are making great lathes these days

Posting with my model engineers hat on

Yes they are but you are far better off getting a good solid 'western built' lathe new or second hand e.g. myford, boxford, denford, harrison, southbend where parts and accessories are available from either the OEM or a 3rd party.

I bet the most common lathe in a makers workshop is the myford - I feel a poll coming on

John

[Richard Evans]

I have a couple of lathes in the workshop. The bigger is a Boxford 5 x 21 (10 x 21 by the American system). This is an excellent very solid machine, a bit bigger than the Myford. One thing to look at is the clearance within the headstock spindle. The Boxford is 3/4 inch, the Myford ML7 is I think onlyabout 9/16. The Myford Super 7 is about an inch I think. This is a very useful feature which reduces the overhang since long pieces are partially inserted into the spindle bore.

The other lathe is a cheap Chinese mini-lathe, very good value and handy for smaller operations. Too small to make a set of UP but with a big spindle bore so pretty flexible. The variable speed and reversing facility are great for screw threads.

All external chanter shaping is done using a router mounted in a vertical slide and tailstock offset for tapers. This is a completely chatter-free method- a Northumbrian pipe chanter about 16 inches by less than half an inch diameter can be turned this way supported only at the ends. The lathe rotates at a slow speed while the router does the work.

I have recently bought a set of ER collets which fit both lathes and the milling machine- these have produced a big increase in accuracy and quality, at a fairly modest price.

Cheers
Richard

[rorybbellows]

I have recently bought a set of ER collets which fit both lathes and the milling machine- these have produced a big increase in accuracy and quality, at a fairly modest price.

Cheers
Richard

Whats the advantage of collets over a normal chuck?

RORY

[billh]

I have recently bought a set of ER collets which fit both lathes and the milling machine- these have produced a big increase in accuracy and quality, at a fairly modest price.

Cheers
Richard

Whats the advantage of collets over a normal chuck?

RORY

Collets (good ones, at least) hold the workpiece more concentrically and reproducibly, and are quick to set up. This is very helpful when making reamers. They also have the advantage that they hold round material around almost its entire circumference, rather than at three or four points. This means that they can grip more securely without deforming the material.

ER collets offer more leeway in use because they usually grip over a range of diameters of about 1mm. Collets designed to grip only one specific diameter can sometimes be superior in terms of holding the workpiece perfectly axial - or so I'm told. I have both types now, and this does seem to be true.

Even in the woodturning arena, collet chucks can be advantageous. You can make boxwood collets, slotted along the sides in 6 places - 3 on one side and three on the other, to grip wooden parts as well.

Bill

[Richard Evans]

I have recently bought a set of ER collets which fit both lathes and the milling machine- these have produced a big increase in accuracy and quality, at a fairly modest price.

Cheers
Richard

Whats the advantage of collets over a normal chuck?

RORY

What Bill said. I work with wood down to about 5mm diameter for Northumbrian pipes, and the concentricity is vastly better than the three jaw chuck. The collets don't mark wood and the collet chuck just needs hand-tightening. Should have had them years ago. I use a four jaw self centring chuck for square stock, and it feels prehistoric in comparison.

Richard

[J-dub]

Another useful aspect of collet chucks is that there are no projecting bits that can catch your knuckles or clothing like a three or four jaw chuck. This is nice when turning small pieces by hand and working close to the chuck. I made a 5C collet chuck for my wood lathe for just this reason (I already have a large collection of collets for my metal lathe, but as Bill points out one can fashion collet chucks from wood to serve your needs).

As has been mentioned, good quality collets make it possible to re-center work quickly and accurately. I find them really nice for holding tubing without deforming it and and turning small bits like the top of the reed cap without deforming or crushing the part, and I can safely work close to the chuck on such a small part.

[rorybbellows]

If you are working on a long bar can you pass the bar through the collet and into the spindle bore of the lathe?

RORY