face plate question

[lubbing5cherubs]

Gidday, I been using my face plate and the screws keep coming loose. What should I be using because the thought of wearing a hunk of wood is not very appealing.
Toni

[reddog]

dont know how big or out of balence thewood is but try the biggest screws you can put in without going to deep for what you are doing.Or slow rite down untill you are balanced.Or glue to your face plate with hot glue

[DJ’s Timber]

Toni, screws should have a coarse thread like a coach bolt and should be the same size as the hole in the face plate.

Anything that is fine can't get a bite on the timber

[Frank&Earnest]

I hate killing good timber with screws big enough to withstand my poor skills, and there is no assurance that the thickness of the base one wants to achieve is sufficient to hold screws adequate for the job. For this reason, my choice is to screw solidly a piece of scrap wood and glue this to the piece.

[powderpost]

Toni,
I use gyprock or particle board screws, they have a coarse thread. If you are into bowls, I would recommend you screw a 19mm thick waste block onto the face plate and glue the bowl blank on to the waste block. Cut the bowl off with a handsaw and clean up the bottom with a hand plane and sandpaper. If you are into vase shape forms, them use a 50mm thick waste block with a 50mm hole bored into it. Turn a spigot on the blank between centres. with the spigot to match the hole on the waste block. Again cut off the finished project with a hand saw and sand the bottom.
Jim

[Flaco]

Toni,
I turn mostly large unbalanced green wood , and never had a piece fly off. From my experience the amount of screws is more important then the size of them. try adding more screws, that if you have more holes in the face plate.

Guy

[joe greiner]

Sheet metal screws work better than wood screws. Also available with a hex head for more robust tightening, but don't overdo it. For best purchase in the wood, pre-bore slightly smaller than the root diameter of the screw. Glued-on waste block is best if your workpiece isn't thick enough to accommodate screw length; not good when you nick a chisel with a screw. A sheet of kraft paper (e.g. shopping bag) in the glue joint makes separation easier via knife or hand chisel. Some folks swear by hot-melt glue, but not so great if you're turning near the joint and the wood warms up from cutting/bevel riding.

Joe

[TTIT]

Toni - End-grain or cross-grain???? All the above suggestions are fine for cross grain but if you're still doing your lidded boxes, you're trying to screw into end-grain which will rarely hold properly. Better to screw a piece of waste on cross-grain, turn a recess in the face of it to fit your blank (which you turned a spigot on between centres earlier) and glue the blank into it as Jim suggested.:U

If this doesn't make sense to you, PM me and I'll do some pics.

[lubbing5cherubs]

I am not it is a bowl blank that I got off my wood fairy a long time ago so I am not sure whether it is cross or end grain, but can you tell me what is a spigot? Sorry:-

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I am not it is a bowl blank that I got off my wood fairy a long time ago so I am not sure whether it is cross or end grain, but can you tell me what is a spigot?

A spigot is the rounded piece on the end of the blank that you turn (usually between centres) to fit inside the chuck jaws.

Other options, if you're screwing into end-grain is to hot-melt glue a largish disk of scrap-wood or ply (I don't recommend MDF) to the end of the blank. You can then screw the faceplate to that, or turn a recess for the chuck, or glue/screw another smaller disk to act as the spigot. :)

There's really a lot of different ways of doing more or less the same thing.

[lubbing5cherubs]

ok thanks this is all learning curve.
Toni

[hughie]

Toni,
I use the spigot idea but PVA is the glue I prefer. I often glue several in advance. Not really that fond of the the hotmelt.

[rodent]

TONY send me your mailing address and ill send you a disk its got most of what ive scanned and down loaded over the last 2 years ? do you have a dvd reader if not ill send several CDs there's a lot of imfo ive collected .about 2-3 gig

[lubbing5cherubs]

have pmed you thanks mate
Toni

[Little Festo]

Toni,

can you use the tailstock and "true up" the piece. If it's out of balance there are a lot more stresses involved and once in balance you shouldn't have problems. Is the faceplate well seated on a flat surface, no gaps??

Peter

[soundman]

have you shaped the blank as close to round as you can before fixing?

are you spinning it too fast or taking tooo savage a cut

are you working on the face plate alone or will you be remouniting on a chuck.

I will usualy mount up the blank with the (future) open end of the bowl mounted to the the face plate.......which allows for much longer screws....true up and shape the outside of the piece.......then remount the other way arround.

by this time things are much better balanced and the face you are mounting to will be flat & true..... because you have "made it so".

I find chipboard screws just fine.

cheers

[Tornatus]

Gidday, I been using my face plate and the screws keep coming loose. What should I be using because the thought of wearing a hunk of wood is not very appealing.
Toni

G'day Toni

As no-one else has mentioned them, I thought I should recommend to you Sachys-Robertson square drive screws - see their website at http://www.sachys-robertson.com.au/index.html

Apart from these screws being very strong and very positive to drive, they are available in a particular pack for woodturners which combines large size/heavy thread with short length, giving you excellent mounting on faceplates. You can order them online, and they are very reasonably priced, as is an introductory Test pack offer which contains a range of their screw types and a driver bit thrown in. Good value!

PS ALWAYS wear a good polycarbonate face-shield when beginning to turn heavy/unbalanced blanks. Our Guild treasurer is still sporting a contusion on the bridge of his nose where a rogue blank struck his "safety glasses" right between the eyes.

[rodent]

Tanks Tornatus i didn't sachys address for tony. Oh the pack Torn's talking about is the wood turners pack ( yes they made it just for as folks ) . I always place the tailstock in the end when roughing down to reasonably ballanced before i remove it .

[Poloris]

Tony one of the factors you should consider is the amount of shear force on your face plate screws.

Particle board screws may have a long thread with good holding ability but are thin and brittle.

Eddy Conover in his "The Lathe Book" recommends using sheet metal screws because thier holding power is superior to woodscrews and they have a degree of heat treatment which gives them greater strength and toughness.

#12 by 1" tek screws work for me.

Also I had problems with work lossening off one of my faceplates until I noticed the headstock spindle was screwing through the face plate and pushing the work off the faceplate.

Poloris

[powderpost]

I have been using particle board screws now for many years. Never had one break or loose a job. I stopped using paper in glue joints after one such failure put me in hospital with concussion. Admittedly sharp tools and good technique do play a big role here. But then I have only been turning for about 50 years. :doh:
Jim

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Jim, the failure with the brown paper... was that during spindle turning (ie. as in making split columns or inverted vases) or was it between the blank and spigot?

[Darrell Feltmate]

Tony
If I could just jump in here, my understanding is you want to turn a bowl from an unbalanced blank but the screws are pulling loose from the wood. First of all, let me point out that you are using the right piece of equipment. A face plate will give a stronger hold than will a chuck assuming the plate is fastened securely.

First: make sure the area of attachment is flat. Generally I use a chain saw for this but a plane or sander may be necessary.

Second:Use self tapping sheet metal screws. I like square drive (Robertson) #14 by 3/4" or 1" . In end grain I am likely to use 1 1/2" and drive them at an angle.


Third: Use sharp tools and gentle cuts, generally with the tail stock in place as long as possible.
With all that said, I like to use the spur center and tail center to rough out the bowl. Once it is dried, I flatten the bottom with plane or sander and hot glue on a waste block. Then it is finish turned, sanded and finished. For a better explanation see http://aroundthewoods.com/bowls.shtml

Hope this helps.

[lubbing5cherubs]

No the bowl is round and the screws are coming out. It to the hollowing stage. gidgee is really bad for it I found:-
Toni

[powderpost]

Skew, the paper trick was on a bowl glued to a block. The idea was to prise the finished bowl away with an old table knife. Didn't work out that way. It was a rather irregularly shaped blank. I also played around with oval bowls a little while back, using paper joints but they also failed. I have made split spindles with paper in the joint, successfully, but I used a cup centre in the tail stock.
Jim

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Ah. I thought that may've been the case, but I wasn't too sure.

Because, as you said, the idea of including the paper is to give it a nice, clean shear plane I've never tried using it on a mounting block. Only between centres or the odd piece in a chuck when laminated parallel to the lathe bed.

It's nice to know my reasoning was sound without having to blow up any pieces myself. :)