What's a durable laser for hollowing tool?

[Geoff Crimmins]

I'm working on building a captured hollowing tool for my lathe. I'd like to mount a laser on it. I've talked to a couple of friends with a similar setup, and they both complain about how often their laser pointer fails because of the vibration and sawdust. Has anyone here found a laser pointer that will work reliably on a hollowing tool? Or has anyone tried using a gun laser sight? I would expect one to be more durable than a laser pointer since it has to endure the recoil from the gun.

--Geoff

[Bob Haverstock]

Geoff,

What I settle on for my captured system is a Laser/LED Keychain Light. They sell for $2.47 and tax. I bought about 12 of them, each comes with 2 set of batteries. I buy them from Sam'sMart. My captured bar has 16 inches of depth capacity, that is a lot of overhang for the laser mount. My mount tends to vibrate. My next mount will be made from 1/2 conduit to lessen the vibration. I have had one to fail in about 30 hours of use. Laser expense of less than 9 cents an hour isn't bad.

After finding lasers for $2.47 I quit looking. I'm going to make a short captured bar for hollow forms, it will have much more angular capability.

Bob Haverstock

[Bob Wolfe]

Hi Geoff, I found a few on the internet that operated on AAA batteries. I decided I would rather pay a few $ more for a pointer that used AAA batteries instead of the button cells because I had no idea how long the batts would last and I knew that I didn't want to have to replace button cell batts every time I turned a hollow form. I ended up with http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103037 because it was the only one I could find locally. It is a sturdy pointer that is very bright. I have no problem seeing the red dot regardless of the lighting conditions in my shop. I have replaced the batteries only once after maybe 20 hours of use. Hope this helps.

[Gary Conklin]

Geoff, most of the mfg of hollowing systems also sell a laser assembly, I know that Lyle J., and Donald Derry, and others offer their laser separately.

[Dick Wilson]

I'm working on building a captured hollowing tool for my lathe. I'd like to mount a laser on it. I've talked to a couple of friends with a similar setup, and they both complain about how often their laser pointer fails because of the vibration and sawdust. Has anyone here found a laser pointer that will work reliably on a hollowing tool? Or has anyone tried using a gun laser sight? I would expect one to be more durable than a laser pointer since it has to endure the recoil from the gun.

--Geoff

Hi Geoff, I built my own hollowing system and laser attachment. From experience I would like to off several tips:

Make the arms out of square stock. On my first one I used round bar. Worked great until I was watching the light and went through the wall. Apparently I bumped the arm and pushed the laser towards the cutter. With square stock it won't happen. Got the square stock from Lowe's
I bought my laser pen from one of the big office supplies stores. I made a vertical piece with a v groove for the laser pen and taped it on. When I want to turn the light on all I do is wrap blue painter tape around it and away I go.
I made blocks for the square tubing. The block that captures the D bar is epoxied and bolted. The horizontal tube is epoxied into the upper block. A square hole lets it slide up and down the vertical tube. A plastic nob sets the height.
The adjustable arm has a slot in it to be able to set the laser anywhere you want A plastic know tightens it down.
I made a number of blocks of various thicknesses to set wall thickness.

In most cases the laser doesn't move when hollowing and if so very little. I have seen setups where the laser bounces all over the place. Good luck. Hope this helps.187177