I got a broken model 1000 from Ebay about a year ago. After getting parts from Legacy to make it functional and 6 months of looking at it, reading the books, and your emails, I sat down to try making something.
It was just a maple budvase based on the spiral candlestick pattern. The only variation from the one in the project book was that it was 1.25” diameter spiral to accommodate an 11/16” x 6” hole down the center to hold a glass tube. Both the first and second attempts were learning experiences. Trial #1 - I used the bottom flattener and turned it round. NO problems. I thought this was a great tool. Much faster and easier then doing it on the lathe. I started using a ¾” roundover bit with 6 starts and the D gear according to the charts. Worked beautifully for the first 4 inches when the nut on the gears slipped and it stopped spinning. I tightened the nut, went back to the beginning of that line and started again. At the end of the run, I put the stop in place and moved the carriage by ¾”. On the third spiral, I turned the handle the wrong way and learned to use the stop at the bottom as well as the top. I fixed this later by turning the tendon for the base right up to the bottom of the spiral rather then have a bead at the bottom as I intended. The rest of the turning was fantastic. I ended up with a great piece that was only a little different from what I had wanted. The only issues were 3 small brown places where the router bit burnt the wood and the one area where I had a 1” long groove going straight up the side. I was estatic and wanted to make one with no errors (or at least not such an obvious one). Trial #2 – Turned round and did the bud top with no problems. Put the roundover bit in and started making the bottom ring groove. Bit was really leaving burnt marks on it and I thought I must be going too slow. I started up the spirals and kept getting burn marks no matter how fast or slow I went. I did the 6 spirals and the upper ring but could already tell something was off. The bottom of the groove was very ragged with lots of tear out and there was a burn mark on both sides of the groove about half way up. Then I noticed that I had six perfectly placed spirals at the bottom and 5 spirals at the top (3 expected size and 2 equally fat ones). I looked at it a little more and found that it has somehow jumped over to join two spirals together. Not sure how that happened as I had learned my lesson and had put the locks on the upper screw as well. Also, the edges of the spirals were almost scalloped rather then smooth like trial #1. My questions are: 1: What did I do that caused the burning/scalloping/tear out? To my eye, the bit looks fine if a little blackened (magnate ½” shank #7502) and it preformed great on the previous trial. I am using a Porter Cable 690 router in the plunge bracket with an Eliminator Chuck. 2: What could have caused it to jump so as to make the spirals join together and how can I avoid that happening again? 3: How fast should I be progressing (inches/min) with the bit? Is there an optimum speed? 4: When using a sharp pointed bit like this, should I have made a shallow cut first then come back with a full depth cut? Are these sharp pointed router bits more liable to “follow the grain” the way a sharp pointed drill bit will when going into the end of a piece of wood? 5: When I was doing the bottom flattener, I was turning the handles pretty much in unison (1 revolution each in a CCW direction, about 4-5 seconds/turn). This fed the uncut wood into the bottom of the bit and advanced at a rate of about 0.25”/turn. It looked to me like it was handling the cutting fine. Is this about right or was this too fast? The Legacy motor (that I was not using) turns faster then this. 6: How do you sand these things? 7: Is there anyone in the Gaithersburg, Maryland/Washington DC area that is experienced that I could come watch turn something for an afternoon? (I’ll provide a 6-pack of your choice for the privilege.) A little background. I am pretty experienced at building and remodeling houses, metal working, stained glass, and am getting pretty good with a lathe but I have little experience with band saws, routers, or furniture making in general. My goal is to make a union of lathe work, LOM, metal working, and stain glass and see what can come out of it. Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Legacy Ornamental Mills" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to legacy-ornamental-mills+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to legacy-ornamental-mills@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/legacy-ornamental-mills. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
