turn between centers

[Greg Cuetara]

I have a bottle opener that I picked up from Craft Supplies. It says to turn between centers and drill a hole in one end for the bottle opener.

I am very new and have mostly just done pens on a mandrel which is fairly easy. I tried to drill the hole first and then put the piece on my lathe and turn. I had a few problems. The first is that the hole I first drilled was now not centered so that when I screwed in the bottle opener it doesn't look very good. The second problem I had is that I am using shellawax as a finish and when the piece is on the lathe i can easily put the finish on while it is turning but how do you finish the ends. I turned and then cut off the ends on my bandsaw and then sanded by hand and rubbed on the shellawax but it is not as nice as if I could have done it on the lathe.

How are you supposed to turn the piece, get a hole right in the center and then finish the ends.

Thanks for any advice.
Greg

[David Walser]

Ed Davidson has a great tutorial on how to turn a bottle stopper. You can find it here: http://www.yoyospin.com/tutorials/ (See numbers 11 and 12.)

Actually, Ed has a lot of great tutorials. It's well worth the time looking around his web page.

[Andy Hoyt]

Hey Greg. Try this.

Drill the hole in one end first; and then mount the piece with that end at the tailstock held by a cone. Get it round. Back off the tailstock and complete (through finishing the opener end). Then bring the tailstock back into play. Everything should stay pretty much concentric thereafter.

Of course, this assumes you're grabbing the wood with a chuck or have it hitched to a faceplate. Spinning it with just live and dead centers holding the piece does not sound to rational to me.

How's the weather down south? :D

[Greg Cuetara]

Thanks for the advice. I do not have a real chuck....but I do have a chuck which can hold drill bits etc....and I do have a little piece which can screw in to turn bottle stoppers...guess I should have thought of that one before. I turned 12 pens and two of the bottle opener handles today so I might not have been thinking too clearly towards the end.

the weather was great today...it has been rainy and yucky for quite a while around here...and I pick today to spend the day in the shop..lol...although it was cool in the basement working for most of the day...