My old Craftsman Router Crafter is along the same lines. It might be faster than my lathe to make pieces for the rotary jig.
Clint
My old Craftsman Router Crafter is along the same lines. It might be faster than my lathe to make pieces for the rotary jig.
Clint
Well I finally have gotten around to experimenting with using a jig on the table saw to make dowels for the rotary. First I tried the CW rotary jig itself upside down on my table saw with the dowel perpendicular to the blade. Not so good. The forces involved were scary, the dowel rotation was hard to control, and the finish on the dowel was rough. I also tried the router table and that was worse. I was too scared to try the aluminum jig with the dowel parallel to the blade (like the cylindermill at the start of this thread) as the blade could hit the aluminum. Next I tried my own rotary jig (all wood so not so scary!). I extended the shaft and put a drill on it. It worked like a charm. I could not get to the ends of the dowel without cutting the jig, but it as a test, it was a success. I have started to design a wooden jig for the CW to make.
I bought one from the cylindermill works great, takes a little while to get it set up. I have live oak on my place and wanted to be able to use it on the rotary jig.
I was surprised at how small the reaction forces are when you cut with the grain. It sure can make a big mess fast though. Need a wood shaving collection system for indoor use!
I guess if you were going to make a lot of dowels for larger projects this would be a great thing. However, the Rotary jig will use square stock and even make round dowels up to the capacity of the jig. It takes a lot of time though.
I think a lathe is still the best tool for making round stock but, it does require a certain amount of skill.
Last edited by SteveNelson46; 02-11-2015 at 07:59 PM.
Steve
I think this thing is going to be very useful, fast, and easy to use. I hate to use the CW to do things that are more easily done by other machines. (My rotary jig has Plexiglas on top for dust collection and so I really need the bigger dowels to be already round.)
First prototype test. This thing is awesome. Faster than a lathe. Seems it can do wonders in a single pass. Video coming soon.
Here is a video of the prototype in operation. I went for the brutal single pass just for the video. A sane person would take smaller passes. (My cyclone plugged because of a small strip of wood. Normally all the shavings would suck out.)
http://youtu.be/fk8ix5BrASM