MC900 - Comments & Questions

[smidsy]

Hei Guys,
Just finished putting the beast together.
Overall I am very impressed - little things like amount of packaging and even grease paper on the bed surface.
Fortunately I managed to get the neighbours teenage kids to help me put it together and it is a very stable platform even with the basic steel legs.
Nylock nuts would be nice then I am a fussy prick.

I got the package deal which included a chinese copy of the Bonham vise - obviously not as good as a Bonham but for $20 I can fiddle with it.

The dumb question I have is how do I use the vice - anyone know of any website that will give me a run down on the vice as I got no literature at on it.
I thought about the old suck it & see method, but my neighbours went nuts when I built a spud gun so they would not be impressed if I started hurling lumps of timber at them.

Cheers
Smidsy

[DarrylF]

Not quite sure how you're planning to use a vise with a wood lathe, but hey - whatever floats your boat :)

I'll assume it's actually a chuck? OK then. Bit difficult without piccies, but I'll give it a go. Assuming here you want to turn a bowl.

Start with your faceplate. That's the round, flat thing with lots of holes in it, with a big threaded hole in the middle that kinda pokes up. That bit threads onto the spindle. But don't do that yet.

Take your wood blank. Hopefully you have one flat face. If not, you need to. The grain should run parallel with the flat face. Cut it into a round disc basically - with a bandsaw ideally. Start with 6-8 inches in diameter, good size to work with.

Place the faceplate on the disc, flat side down on the flat face of the blank, and center it. Drill pilot holes in 4 places equally spaced, around half way between the center of the faceplate and the outside of the timber blank. Basically just pick the best holes in the faceplate. Attach the faceplate with 4 screws - I use pan head screws around 3/4" long or maybe an inch.

Screw the faceplate with blank attached onto the spindle of the lathe. So now you have the blank mounted, and what will become the base of the bowl exposed. I'll not try to tell how to turn as such, but basically you rough out the blank to the bowl shape you want.

You then need to turn the base. You have choices here. The chuck can grip around the base, or inside a recess in the base. That decision largely depends on the diameter of the chuck jaws when the chuck is closed in relation to the size of the bowl. If you can grip the outside of the foot size you want with the chuck say 3-6mm from closed that's ideal. If not, close the vise all the way up, back it off until you have say 1-2mm gap between each jaw, then measure the outside diameter of the jaws. That will be the inside diameter of the recess you need to cut in the base.

Assuming you are gripping the outside of the foot, turn a foot that is the right diameter and about 5mm high (I use 3mm or so, but try 5mm to start) - high as in the height it will wind up when the bowl is sitting on a flat surface. It should be slightly cone shaped - narrower at the top than the bottom.

If you're going to grip the bowl with the jaws inside a recess in the base, you're cutting a recess say 5mm deep, with an opening the diameter of the outside jaws of the chuck when it's fully closed - or slightly larger. The recess should be wider at the top than the bottom - to reflect the slope on the jaws. The timber you leave behind outside the recess should be wide & strong enough to resist some pretty serious forces - so on a hardwood at LEAST 20mm or so in most cases. So for say a 60mm outside diameter on the chuck jaws, the overall base would be 100mm.

Finish the whole of the outside, sand, and then polish. You will be able to sand & finish around the rim of the bowl when it's turned around and gripped by the chuck, but not much beyond that in many cases.

Unscrew the faceplate from the spindle and remove the screws. Screw the chuck onto the spindle and mount the bowl onto the chuck. Turn the outer edge, then the inside, sand & finish and you're done.

Note on lathe speeds: With the 900 you want to start at say 1/4 speed for roughing and work up from there. So when sanding & finishing the outside you might be at 3/4 speed. Then back to 1/4 to rough out the inside and work up again. Rough or large work = slow, fine or small work = fast basically.

Sorry if that's all a bit long winded & basic - but hope it helps :)

[gatiep]

Smidsy
Do yourself a favour and get some tuition. I'm sure your supplier runs courses. Some even have free Saturday morning demos. Check the home page of your supplier, maybe there will be a free demo shortly.

Cya

[smidsy]

Hei Guys,
Sorry about the brain fade.

It is actually a 4 jaw scroll chuck - a copy of the Bonham chuck, which I got with my MC900.
The thing that had me stumped was the two bars that came with it - saw a demo at Carbatec today and I saw that they are what you use to open and close the chuck.
One thing that still has me stuffed is that with the chuck came a large screw that has a very coarse thread and a dome head.
Cheers
Smidsy

[Vasco]

Smidsy,
the screw is so that you can use your chuck as a screw chuck. Saves you having to buy a seperate screw chuck. With mine it is inserted from behind then you close the jaws around it. You probably can feed it from in front as well, check it out. Was at the demo today as well. Don't be affraid to ask questions to find things out. We are all in the same boat and you never know others may learn from your questions. Even if you stay back after the demo to ask. Remember to post some pics of your first turnings.
Have fun.
Regards Vasco.

[Sprog]

Smidsy,

Check out your local Woodturners Association of WA group.

You will get more help than you can poke a stick at and they are a great bunch of people.

For your local group see

WA Woodturners Association (http://www.wawa.com.au/)