5 Attachment(s)
Warning to users of Rikon 70-220VSR lathe
For my first turning project with a new Rikon 70-220VSR lathe
I chose to make the Shaker candle stand which is written up
in Fine Woodworking magazine. The centerpiece of the stand
is a pretty wine bottle shaped post to which three legs are attached
via dovetail slots in the base of the post. Obviously, the slots are
to be spaced 120 degrees apart. Fortunately, the lathe has an indexing
head with 24 numbered holes, each 15 degrees apart.
I had no problem turning the post nor routing the dovetail slots using
a router jig mounted onto the lathe; see the first photo. But, as you can see from the
second photo, the dovetail slots aren't equally spaced. How can this be? I used the numbering
scheme on the indexing head to rotate the spindle, first from location #1,
then to #9, and finally to #17.
The third photo shows the indexing head with position #1 at the top.
In this region of the head, the numbers seem well aligned with the holes.
The fourth photo shows the head with position #9 at top. Again all looks
fine. The problem is the the hole which seems to be #9 is actually #8, i.e.
only 105 degrees rotated away from #1! Finally, the fifth photo shows
that the mixup occur around holes 4-6. The hole nearest the #6 label
is actually only the fifth. A similar mess-up occurs around holes #15 and
#16.
Had I counted actual holes instead of relying on their labels, all would have
been fine. But then what the heck are the number labels for? Be interested to
hear if others have encountered this issue.