Subject: Re: Turned Pens

From: [email-masked]
Date: 12 Feb 1997 01:00:23 GMT

Rod Danner <[email-masked]> wrote:

>I enjoy making turned pens, as do many woodworkers.  They make great
>gifts, etc.  I find it a real nuisance to set up the drilling operation
>on my Shopsmith (I usually use horizontal boring).  Does anyone have any
>creative ideas for a jig to hold the blank for drilling?  I haven't come
>up with a good solution other than purchasing a sliding machinist's
>vise.  There was a fairly good idea in "Woodsmith", but it was only for
>one size of blank.  I like to use a wide variety of woods and sizes.
>
>Any Ideas would be appreciated.

Hi.
While I'm not using a Shopsmith but a Drill Press, I made a simple jig for
centering and holding the square pen blanks.  This jig holds the blanks
upright and centers them.  It seems to work for me and you may be able to
convert the idea to a horizontal postion.  (Never used a Shopsmith)

The jig is nothing more than a vertical wooden fence in the shape of an
inverted V, with the angle between the legs of 90 degrees mounted on a
sliding bed of plywood.  The sliding bed is mounted to a base with two
threaded rods running in two cutouts to allow front to back movement and
the ability to clamp the bed in place in relation ot the base.  
The vertical fence is nothing more than two pieces of 3/4 Plywood joined
at 90 degrees to each other and at 90 degrees to the base.  The squareness
(?) of the fence is very important, as if the fence is out of square with
the base or each other the drilling will not go straight.  I use a
replacable peice of plywood at the bottom of the fence for backing
purposes and to support the blank being drilled.  The height is just over
the height of the longest pen blank drilled plus 3/4" for the support
peice of wood.
There are a number of ways to hold the pen blanks while being drilled.  I
made a small piece of wood to hold the blank and is fastened to the fence
with screw knobs (Too cumbersome). You could use the hold-down type of
clamps (Too expensive), You could use a C-clamp (Too much pressure), Or,
You could use your finger pressure to hold the blank in place (A word
about shop safety :)) ) which I do now, which seems to work fine.
The reason the fence is mounted on a sliding bed is that the pen blanks
can be different thicknesses and you need to move the fence back and forth
to drill down the middle.  The sliding bed is secured by two screw down
knobs on 10-24 breadboard screws and ride in tow parallel slots in the
bed.

Bad ASCII Drawing   (Top view)

|                                                          | Base that
attaches to DP 
|              |                            |              | Sliding Bed
for fence 
|              |             /\             |              |Fence at 90
degrees  
|              |            /   \           |              |
|              |                            |              |
|                                                         |

Any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.  Sorry about
being long winded.

Rick Rasmussen
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Richard Kleinhenz)
Date: 13 Feb 1997 01:37:36 GMT

In message <[email-masked]> -
[email-masked] writes:
:>
:>While I'm not using a Shopsmith but a Drill Press, I made a simple jig for
:>centering and holding the square pen blanks.  This jig holds the blanks
:>upright and centers them.  It seems to work for me and you may be able to
:>convert the idea to a horizontal postion.  (Never used a Shopsmith)
:>
:>The jig is nothing more than a vertical wooden fence in the shape of an
:>inverted V, with the angle between the legs of 90 degrees mounted on a
:>sliding bed of plywood.  The sliding bed is mounted to a base with two
:>threaded rods running in two cutouts to allow front to back movement and
:>the ability to clamp the bed in place in relation ot the base.  
:>The vertical fence is nothing more than two pieces of 3/4 Plywood joined
:>at 90 degrees to each other and at 90 degrees to the base.  The squareness
:>(?) of the fence is very important, as if the fence is out of square with
:>the base or each other the drilling will not go straight.  I use a
:>replacable peice of plywood at the bottom of the fence for backing
:>purposes and to support the blank being drilled.  The height is just over
:>the height of the longest pen blank drilled plus 3/4" for the support
:>peice of wood.
:>There are a number of ways to hold the pen blanks while being drilled.  I
:>made a small piece of wood to hold the blank and is fastened to the fence
:>with screw knobs (Too cumbersome). You could use the hold-down type of
:>clamps (Too expensive), You could use a C-clamp (Too much pressure), Or,
:>You could use your finger pressure to hold the blank in place (A word
:>about shop safety :)) ) which I do now, which seems to work fine.
:>The reason the fence is mounted on a sliding bed is that the pen blanks
:>can be different thicknesses and you need to move the fence back and forth
:>to drill down the middle.  The sliding bed is secured by two screw down
:>knobs on 10-24 breadboard screws and ride in tow parallel slots in the
:>bed.
:>
        <snip>
:>Rick Rasmussen
:>[email-masked]
:>

I held blanks with my fingers until I had a good blowout one day, and my
fingers, with the resistance suddenly gone, went smack into the bit. 
Lost 2 fingercaps.  I was lucky, it's nearly all healed, only a scar
left on one of the fingers with a sensation that I don't want to pick up
my guitar...  So, please spend the $10 and get a toggle clamp!

Here's a description of the setup I use on my Shopsmith.  It's the 3rd
build or so of the jig, and I am quite happy with it,  It's accurate and
fast, the cost was scrapwood and a $11.95 toggle clamp.

I use the SS in horizontal boring mode, out of convenience.  The main
fixture is a board that sits on the table, with stops that hook over
back and front of the table, so it's indexed on 2 sides and repositions
exactly the same place every time.  On it sits a v-block out of a pice
of 8/4 scrap hardwood.  Don't use softwood.  Each side of the V is about
1/2".  Behind it, I have another block, even with the bottom of the V. 
There's an 1/8" gap between the V block and it.  It has a bolt sticking
out the top, which I use to bolt on a piece of wood as depth stop.  I
precut a bunch of 2" squares, and I can use all 4 sides of one as they
wear out.  The point of the gap is for chip clearance.  The V block is
mounted exactly inline with the drill bit.  The only adjustment
necessary is table up and down movement to locate the hole very
accurately.  Easy on the SS!  I mount the jig, locate the hole
vertically by sighting eye.  When I set up, I tend to drill 10 or more
blank sets.  If I have different sizes: no problem, I drill them a pair
at a time, and the only adjustment potentially necessary is tableheight!

The way I clamp the piece is with a toggle clamp.  I use a variety of
woods, they are not always 3/4" square.  The toggle clamp adjusts easily
(I replaced one of the nuts with a wing nut).  To distribute the clamp
force, I use another piece of hardwood block, with the same V groove.  I
have 2 pieces, with different depth V grooves, to allow holding smaller
pieces also (so the 2 V-blocks don't clamp onto each other...).  The
whole jig is mounted with 2 appropriate C clamps to the table.  The one
in the rear is a quick-adjust one.

If you end up building a jig, you'll undoubtedly do through your own
iterations until it fits you just fine, and it'll incorporate the
feature YOU deem important.  And that make the best use of YOUR
equipment.

One other note on drill jig:  HUT products sells an interesting one. 
It's life a nutcracker lieing on its side:  hinged at 1 end, with a
couple of opposing V grooves of different depths a few inches from the
hinge.  The sides are maybe 15" long or so, maybe 1 3/4" x 1 3/4".  I
thought that was a neat setup for vertical drilling.  They sell the jig,
and have a dimensioned drawing in their littel pen turning manual.

Regards,

Rich