Lathe Dancers - Do they Work?
Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 7:34 pm
It has been since February and July of 2008 since we talked about lathe dancers. I had it my mind they would serve as a poor man's lathe duplicator. Do a forum search for Lathe Dancers and you will see the two posts from back then (2008).
Well - I finally got a round TUIT and an hour or so per day for the last few weeks did some construction and tried them out.
Didn't have any turning project in mind - just wanted to see if the dancers worked. So I drew out a template of what could be a pair of leg stretchers for a chair or bench. The Idea of dancers was an old method of duplicating spindles way back when turners didn't have better automation. Would this work on a Shopsmith lathe?? We will see!
Here's some photos - It will take several posts to cover the story -
THE DANCER SUPPORTS
[ATTACH]8910[/ATTACH]
THE SUPPORT WITH HOLDERS (used scrap material
[ATTACH]8912[/ATTACH]
SHOWING ATTACHMENT BLOCKS FOR SHOPSMITH these are from ripped 2X6s
[ATTACH]8913[/ATTACH]
DANCER BLOCKS Hard maple 1"x1/2"x1/4" - 1/8" holes and 1/4" single hole - screw hole tapped, then "crazy glued" then re-tapped
[ATTACH]8914[/ATTACH]
SINGLE BLOCK WITH DANCER dancer is a bamboo skewer - plastic Pick-Up-Sticks would also work
[ATTACH]8915[/ATTACH]
TO BE CONTINUED ---
Well - I finally got a round TUIT and an hour or so per day for the last few weeks did some construction and tried them out.
Didn't have any turning project in mind - just wanted to see if the dancers worked. So I drew out a template of what could be a pair of leg stretchers for a chair or bench. The Idea of dancers was an old method of duplicating spindles way back when turners didn't have better automation. Would this work on a Shopsmith lathe?? We will see!
Here's some photos - It will take several posts to cover the story -
THE DANCER SUPPORTS
[ATTACH]8910[/ATTACH]
THE SUPPORT WITH HOLDERS (used scrap material
[ATTACH]8912[/ATTACH]
SHOWING ATTACHMENT BLOCKS FOR SHOPSMITH these are from ripped 2X6s
[ATTACH]8913[/ATTACH]
DANCER BLOCKS Hard maple 1"x1/2"x1/4" - 1/8" holes and 1/4" single hole - screw hole tapped, then "crazy glued" then re-tapped
[ATTACH]8914[/ATTACH]
SINGLE BLOCK WITH DANCER dancer is a bamboo skewer - plastic Pick-Up-Sticks would also work
[ATTACH]8915[/ATTACH]
TO BE CONTINUED ---