Rotary Jig Prototype II

[bergerud]

The dust cap seems to work fine with the rotary jig. A little more gets away because of the extra space. A longer brush would help that.

Steve; I do not know anything about pen mandrels. I am sure a pen holder could be made.

[gregsolano]

I never say you guys can't do it because you never cease to amaze me, but, anyone who has turned pens can tell you the final thickness of a turned pen is very thin, probably less than 1/32. Cigar pens are thicker and would be easier to try, I wonder if the CW would cause blow out. That is when you are turning a pen and the piece will shatter or break apart while turning.

[SteveEJ]

I turn a lot of different types of pens. Blowout is usually attributed to poor gluing of material to the brass tubes. When I spiral mill my pens I always use epoxy and make sure there are no gaps or air pockets between the pens and the tubes. If I do that a 2hp router turning a .5 inch router bit at 18000 rpm is not a problem. With the CW's linear motion and very small bites of the carving bit it should not be a problem provided the stock is turned round and larger than the highest area to be carved. The pattern to be cut and how to lay that out is going to be the interesting challenge.

[mwhatch]

I recently started turning pens, and coincidentaly, recently buillt a rotary axis for my small desktop cnc, inspired by the first rotary jig. I have machined a couple of pen barrells with engravings. I take them to withing about .050 ", then finish on the lathe. I have done v-carving for inlays and relief carvings. You just have to choose your models carefully because they are so small.

[gregsolano]

Morton, do you have any pics? Be great to see them.

[Digitalwoodshop]

Excellent Jig.. And Dust collection...

AL

[mwhatch]

I do have a couple of pictures of what I am trying to do.
The DAD was carved with a 60 degree v-bit and inlayed with turquoise inlace.
Next, the dots, used a 1/8 end mill to drill shallow holes and also used turquoise inlace.
The double hearts was carved with a 1/16 tapered bit, just like the cw bit.
The stars and moons were cut with a 60 degree v-bit, aboout .050 deep. Filled with acrylic paint.
The DAD and double heart could be used on a larger body pen such as Wall St.II, Gatsby, Sierra.
The other two would work on a any pen with a 7mm tube, Slimline, Comfort, etc.
CA finish applied to all of them.
These were all cut on my desktop CNC rotary, then finished on lathe.
I am currently working on a way to use the CW with a sled, to carve on a rough cut barrell, then finish on the lathe.
They are all just over 2" long and .30 to .60 inch diameter.

[gregsolano]

Nice work Morton.

[bergerud]

I know that it has been mentioned by myself and others that a driving wheel can be used on the end(s) of the dowel in a rotary jig. I know others have done it. There have been, however, no reports or pictures.

The driving wheel is a good idea for a few reasons. It provides a consistent, known circumference, which reduces the trial and error of determining the project length in Designer. It allows for the mounting of non-dowel wood. One can use the wheels to make dowels or just to carve on rough cut wood. (On my jig, it is also used to as an accurate place to touch down the bit.)

In the pictures, you can see I cut a piece of walnut into an octagonal cylinder, mounted it, and carved my twisted square column without having to make it into a dowel first.

(In case you wonder why I would carve this, it is part of a calculus demo to show that the volume of solids depends only on cross sections and not on things like twist.)

[LittleRedWoodshop]

Very nice ... keep up the good work.