Balsa Wood Dowel Making

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Phish, that is some good information. You're guessed right in addressing the battery life as I should have said, I hate the batteries that wear out on cordless drills. I really do like the convenience but it was always the damn batteries dying that made me stop getting them. I know I had a couple Craftsman drills, the last one a 19 volt.

I'll have to keep an eye out for the Home Depot guarantee.

I have a 12" wood lathe and turned down some balsa sticks but it takes a little while, that dowel thing on the video is much quicker but when I get a half inch chuck drill press, I think I'm going back to the brass tubing cut out method.

PerchJerker has a really good method of cutting out dowels on his drill press that I think I could get used to.

 

Thanks,

Kirk

[Phish 0]

Cool! Keep them coming as its always fun to see how others are doing to make round stocks.

 

Craftmans have the worse cordless/battery products on the earth!! Pure garbage thats why they are cheap and take half a day to charge. Where else on my milwaukee 18v take only 1/2 hour to charge using Lith. Ion battery. One thing to remember alway keep them on charge as once you leave them off charge for more then a month or 2 then that when they start losing their usefulness and eventually die out.

[perchjerker 0]

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with how I do it, I use Central Texas Striper guide and commercial tier (Ret.) Charlie Cypert's method.

 

I start with a 4" X 4" 'stick' a couple of feet long. The body length I am interested in making determines how long the piece is that I cut off.

 

Let's assume that I want a 2" long body, I double this and add 1/8" to that number. Thus, I cut off a 4 1/8" long section. One end will arbitrarily be the 'bottom' end. I measure off 1/8" up from the bottom and draw a line across all four sides at this level. My 'cutters' are various diameters and lengths of brass tubing that have had a bevel ground around one end to form a cutting edge. My brass cutters are long enough to cut the total length of the body X 2 that I desire to make and allow for chucking with about 1/4" between the face of the chuck and the desired total body length. For clarity, if I need to cut a 4" long cylinder, and I need an additional 3/4" for chucking, plus an additional 1/4" for 'clearance', my cutter will be 5" long. (I have a line drawn around the top of my cutters the denote the chucking 'depth'.)

 

After chucking up the cutter, I set the travel distance on my drill press to a maximum of 4 inches. I set the table of my drill press so that I have only 1/16", or less, clearance between the top of the balsa block and the bottom of the cutting tube; just enough to allow me to move the block around under the cutter.

 

Starting at one corner, I 'cut' a plug as close to the edges as I possibly can, and continue this process in rows and columns until I have cut as many plugs as possible from the block. Unfortunately, everything is still in the original block! I next take the block to my band saw and cut the previously marked 1/8" off the boom end. Voila', when I now hold the block upright, I have a number of balsa cylinders 4" long that simply fall out of the block, the number depending on the diameter of the plugs.

 

If I am going to make Pencil Poppers, I stick first one end and then the other of a cylinder into my pencil sharpener to provide the requisite taper. After all of the cylinders have been so tapered, I then cut them in half on a 15° to yield a sloped face. This doubles the number of body blanks obtained from the cylinders. The only thing left to do is to cut the hook slot. IF you have enough hair on your chest, you can do as Charlie did, and simply hold the tapered body to the blade of your band saw and cut the hook slot. Personally, I use a hand held "razor saw'.

 

The 'honey combed' remains of the block can be used to hold tying tools, etc., on your bench; or, simply pitch it.

 

Cheers,

Frank

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Perch, what kind of pencil sharpener are you using? I have the old fashioned screw to the wall kind and it kind of gouges the soft hobby balsa as does my "manual" one with the razor blade for my shop pencils - the kind we used to carry in our book bag. Now, that being said, the medium weight balsa shaves very smooth in either sharpener especially after I removed the razor and sharpened it.

 

Kirk

[perchjerker 0]

Kirk...

 

I too use what I have available; one of the old Armstrong wall mounted types that every school class room that I ever sat in, even college, had mounted to the door casing. (Mine has to be close to 100 years old as my dad used it in the office of his business.) Yeah, it does make a rough cut, but a little sandpaper and some Elbow Grease fixes that. They get sanded anyway before either painting or gluing foil on. Charlie had a very nice electric sharpener that would take very large diameter pencils that did not leave the rough surface. I priced one several years ago, but the freight was out of my realm for making bugs just for myself. Had I known in advance of Charlie's 'going out of business' sale, I would have gladly made the 400 mile round trip drive just to get that sharpener, and to see him and his charming wife again.

 

Frank

[bowfin47 0]

... I hate the batteries that wear out on cordless drills. I really do like the convenience but it was always the damn batteries dying that made me stop getting them. I know I had a couple Craftsman drills, the last one a 19 volt...

 

 

Kirk,

 

While I haven't tried to use them, the "Instructables" website has a bunch of easy to follow tutorials on rebuilding cordless tool battery pack & chargers, cording cordless tools, and other "adaptations" for cordless tools.

 

Just go to: Instructables.com and search for: "cordless tool batteries"

 

I think you'll enjoy the tutorials.

 

Enjoy!

 

Kyle

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Kyle, I've trashed my cordless stuff but that site sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.

 

Thanks,

Kirk

[Phish 0]

Found a place in Australia to get round balsa stocks. That what I will plan on doing in the coming months as I willorder a big batch to lasts me a awhile. Its just less time consuming for me and I can concentrate on details.