The turning that killed my lathe.

[Michael Armstrong]

The photo shows a pet urn I made out of spalted maple and ebonized maple. I taught myself to hand chase threads so the lid screws on to secure it. I used boxwood for the insert for the female threads and corian for the male threads. I finished everything with 3 coats of Minwax Antique Oil finish followed by 6 coats of Deft Lacquer. Buffed with tripoli and white diamond and then a coat of ren wax. This is the piece that I was buffing when I blew the electronic drive on my lathe.

By my estimate it should be able to hold the ashes of up to an 80 pound pet.

Thanks for looking and all comments and critiques are welcomed.

Michael

[Steve Schlumpf]

Michael - very nice work! Pretty wood and a great form! What are the dimensions?

Hope you can get your lathe fixed soon!

[David E Keller]

Beautiful wood, form, and finish. The hand-chased threads are a really nice touch as well. Good job.

[David DeCristoforo]

If you burned the remains of the electronic drive, would the ashes weigh more than 80 lbs?

[Dan Forman]

If you burned the remains of the electronic drive, would the ashes weigh more than 80 lbs?

:D:D:D

That is a beautiful urn. I hear that hand chasing threads in wood is a pretty difficult task.

Dan

[Reed Gray]

Nice form. I am mostly curious as to which lathe you have and how you managed to fry the electronic drive. Doesn't sound like some thing easy to do.

robo hippy

[John Keeton]

Nice work, Michael, and a beautiful piece of wood. Hope you get the lathe fixed quickly, though it sounds like a strange problem to have doing a piece like this. I could see something like that happening with a huge, overweight effort. But, this seems to be a common size piece, though the dimensions aren't listed.

[Michael Armstrong]

Thanks for all the comments.
I knew I would forget something when I made the first post and of course that was the dimensions. It stands approximately 6 1/2 inches tall with the finial (the urn itself is about 5 inches tall) and the diameter is about 6 1/2 inches. I'm not sure of the wall thickness but it is approximately 3/16ths.

I had made an earlier post about the drive on my Oneway 1018 dying. It happened because of a discharge of static electricity after buffing. I had buffed earlier in the day without problems. That evening I was finishing the process and reached to hit the off switch. The buffing had apparently caused me to build up a large amount of static electricity that jumped from me to the remote switch. I'm not sure anyone really understands why that blew the electronic drive since there is at least a 6 foot cable that connects the remote switch to the drive. I took the drive to the lathe manufacturer and he sent it on to then drive company. After many phone calls and about a month of waiting the news came back that the drive could not be repaired. So $400 later and a new drive I can turn again.

Michael

[Michael Armstrong]

:D:D:D

That is a beautiful urn. I hear that hand chasing threads in wood is a pretty difficult task.

Dan

Dan:
The hand chasing of the threads does take a lot of practice and I don't claim to have mastered it yet but it has been fun learning. It seems to me that cutting the female threads is easier to learn than cutting the male ones. I have a bunch of corian so I can continue to practice.

Michael

[Michael Armstrong]

If you burned the remains of the electronic drive, would the ashes weigh more than 80 lbs?

David:
I got a good chuckle out of your response. The way I feel about that drive right now :mad: I wouldn't want to waste such a nice piece of wood on its remains.:p

Michael

[Brad Vaughn]

And a lucky pet that would be very nice!!!

[Greg Just]

Very nice urn. Too bad about the drive - $400 - WOW :eek:

With regards to chasing threads, my local club had Mark St. Ledger give a demo yesterday at the University of MN and he did thread chasing. Boxwood was one of the woods he recommended. Wood needs to be hard and dense. That is something one only gets good at with practice. Now that I have a lathe that goes slow enough, I'll be giving it a try.

Nice job and thanks for sharing.

[Peter Fabricius]

Hi Michael;
That is a nice Urn... Too bad about the electronics. Should we be using a static discharge mat or contact point for our hands after buffing? I think I noticed a little something after buffing when my hand touched the tool rest?????
I think I will make a little "grounded touch spot to discharge my hands". Any reason one should not do such a thing?
Peter F.

65 Km south of Michael. With a Nova DVR XP.

[Michael Armstrong]

Hi Peter.

I've now taken to making sure that I touch the lathe bed before after buffing to make sure I discharge the static before I hit the buttons. I have not had anywhere near the build up that I had when the lathe went down so I'm not sure what conditions made that time so special. I had thought about purchasing a static strap from an electronics place buts felt that might pose a safety risk.

Michael

[Michael Armstrong]

Brad and Greg - thanks for the comments.

From my limited knowledge of thread chasing you also need to be careful to pick suitable woods to match up. Apparently you shouldn't use a blackwood/blackwood combo for the male and female threads as that is likely to result in the threads breaking. The boxwood seems to be a standard recommendation for the female threads and then woods like Blackwood and lignum vitae for the male threads.

Michael

[Reed Gray]

Static discharge!!! Well, who would have thunk it??? Guess the manufacturers should inclued a warning. I wonder if there is any way to ground the lathe or piece being buffed to prevent static build up.

robo hippy

[Don Nicholas]

Would putting a ground wire on the lathe frame help with the static.

[Michael Armstrong]

I'm not sure grounding the lathe will make a difference but I am going to give it a shot. I just need to get some wire long enough to reach the nearest water pipe and then we'll see.

Michael

[Don Nicholas]

I'm not sure grounding the lathe will make a difference but I am going to give it a shot. I just need to get some wire long enough to reach the nearest water pipe and then we'll see.

Michael
Michael, First off I am not an electrician, My shop is in a detached 1000 sq ft shop with a separate 200 amp panel. When they wired the shop, they pounded an 8' long grounding rod in the ground, this met local code. Possibly you could do this as well and use that to ground you lathe. I have a General electronic V/S lathe and will consider grounding it that way as well.
Thanks for bringing to light the problem on your post and sorry for your mishap.
Regards
Don

[Peter Fabricius]

Hi All;
Your Lathes are grounded by the green wire to the receptacle....
The static build up is in the human body and if there is no for you to get rid of it... it will jump to the Lathe.
I was thinking of a seperate wire from the house grounding wire or a water pipe run to a spot beside the Lathe so you can touch it after buffing and before touching the Lathe controls. Thinking out loud, hoping there is an electrician around to respond.
Thanks
Peter F.

[James Combs]

Hi All;
Your Lathes are grounded by the green wire to the receptacle....
The static build up is in the human body and if there is no for you to get rid of it... it will jump to the Lathe.
I was thinking of a seperate wire from the house grounding wire or a water pipe run to a spot beside the Lathe so you can touch it after buffing and before touching the Lathe controls. Thinking out loud, hoping there is an electrician around to respond.
Thanks
Peter F.

Ditto what Peter said. Any grounding wire you add to the lathe would just duplicate the power-lead green wire ground. I also am not an electrician but I am an electronics technician courtesy of the USN. The only issue you might have with the power-lead ground is in the case that the grounding lug on your cord is broken off. If that is the case that may be the reason the static discharge was so destructive. Double check your cord and the grounding circuit back to your breaker panel make sure you have a good ground. All that being said if the ground is OK then a wrist type grounding strap may be in order but the simple act of touching the lathe bed should be all you need to do.