Thread: Ring Cutter Vases

Bruce came up with some pretty clever gadgets. When I bought a lathe from him he showed me the ring cutter in action. Pity I never got one at the time. I did get his chuck and and a few other bits n pieces. For anyone interested Mcjings have a version of it.
The vases look good and a good way to use up offcuts.
Regards
John

Yup, built my own similar design to his. But never got around to using it, ended up giving it away to Woodnut in Clarence Town and I doubt if he has used it either

The problem that Bruce was solving with his ring cutter was the nature of the timber supplied to schools, viz standard board sizes. Up bush we could always get a lump of wood if we wanted to make something larger, but in city schools that wasn't an option.

BTW, Bruce and I grew up in the same small country town, which still had its own timber mill during my childhood. Bruce was a generation older than me, so the only contact I had with him was when he taught me 'manual arts' for awhile in the local school. Clever man, but I probably learnt more about working with wood from his father.

Well done Ted, reading your post reminded me that there was one in the shed somewhere. As a result i dragged it out and had a play. I made a few very thin, transparent, lamp shades. But as you said, the finished bowl wasn't very exciting so the "tool", went into the gadgets to ply with later.
Can't remember where the unit I have came from, but it has "Ring Master" written on it, I suspect it was made in America. It would have to be about 35 years old, I acquired it without the instruction book, so I was at a disadvantage.
Nice to see you pushing the boundaries a bit. I like what you have done.

Jim

So that small town was Alstonville where there’s a Leadbeaters lane.
I worked with Bruce and years later Michael at STC.
I remember Bruce mentioning a lineshaft workshop back home.
I knew the building from driving thru every day on my way to work at Ballina slip.
H.

Originally Posted by clear out

So that small town was Alstonville where there’s a Leadbeaters lane.
I worked with Bruce and years later Michael at STC.
I remember Bruce mentioning a lineshaft workshop back home.
I knew the building from driving thru every day on my way to work at Ballina slip.
H.

Yes, that was Alstonville.

That lineshaft was in the old Norco factory that you would have driven past every day on your way to and from the Ballina boat slip. Bruce's father worked there at the factory on mechanical maintenance back when it was in operation. My father also worked there for Norco before WW2.

Later on Bruce's father, Horace, established a wood workshop in the old factory after Norco ceased operation there. I spent a lot of time in that workshop when I was a kid picking up (mostly by osmosis) some of the fundamentals of working with wood.

Bruce got some of his inventiveness from his father, who adapted a small car gearbox to provide dynamic speed control for his wood lathe; as it were MVS long before EVS. That certainly beat stopping the lathe to change the belt every time you wanted to change the speed!