joe greiner
5th February 2011, 10:38 PM
The latest batch of cupcake earrings, St. Patrick's Day edition. Not yet sorted for size, and before attaching fishhooks and final cleaning.
I used a long-line production, with dowels about 7 inches long extending as far as possible into the headstock spindle. This seems faster than using longer workpieces and a travelling steady rest, especially because the toolrest doesn't need to be moved. Advancement is via the pin jaws alone.
There are 6 stages to the the turning itself, including drilling the end for a screw eye. I used the chuck's index positions to scratch the flutes with a modified dental pick; visual alignment was satisfactory. I don't know if a real cupcake has 48 flutes, and it doesn't matter anyway.
The lower part of the bodies are sprayed with clear satin polyurethane. The fixture is several push pins through corrugated cardboard, with double-face tape to hold their heads in alignment. I used a safety wire twister to form the screw eyes, cut to length afterwards.
Cheers,
Joe
I used a long-line production, with dowels about 7 inches long extending as far as possible into the headstock spindle. This seems faster than using longer workpieces and a travelling steady rest, especially because the toolrest doesn't need to be moved. Advancement is via the pin jaws alone.
There are 6 stages to the the turning itself, including drilling the end for a screw eye. I used the chuck's index positions to scratch the flutes with a modified dental pick; visual alignment was satisfactory. I don't know if a real cupcake has 48 flutes, and it doesn't matter anyway.
The lower part of the bodies are sprayed with clear satin polyurethane. The fixture is several push pins through corrugated cardboard, with double-face tape to hold their heads in alignment. I used a safety wire twister to form the screw eyes, cut to length afterwards.
Cheers,
Joe