Turned tennon too small

[dennyom]

Hi, Awhile back I picked up a cheap used Wilton mini lathe made in China. Any way I thought I'd try it out today. I had a small piece of cherry just about big enough for a file handle so thought that that would be a good first project. Having found some instructions on a web site I cut a half inch piece of copper pipe to use as a ferrule. Everything went well but was a bit nervous about reaching over the spinning lathe to hold the ferrule while trying to cut the tennon to size. As a result the tennon is just a bit small and the ferrule just slides off. Is there a way to fix this? I thought perhaps some epoxy mixed with some saw dust might be enought to fill the gap. Would this work? I also thought of just cutting the tennon off and drilling it for a metal rod to use as a tommy bar as there was not one with the lathe.

 

[Scrums]

nahh.....Cheating !

Do it again - get it right and keep on doing it till it is right - the only way to learn and improve your techniques.

Chris

 

[Oakbear]

nahh....cheat!

I wouldn't bother with sawdust unless it has to look special. Anythoing that'll hold and fille the space should do, as long as the tool isn't going to get that much heavy use.

 

[Richard Findley]

Hi,

The best way if it is just a bit loose is to use the the tip of a skew to make a groove. If you put just a bit of extra pressure onto it it will lift the grain each side of the cut and effectively increase the diameter of the wood.

HTH (and makes sense!!)

Richard

 

[Darren D Breeze]

Hi mate, like the others say just do another one and use that one for something else, when i turn tenons i tend to use a set of engineering calipers and turn one part of the tenon until the calipers will just slip over it then remove the rest of the timber to that dimension, if turning a tenon smaller than say 1" i use an open ended spanner with the leading edges slightly rounded off to prevent them catching or scoring the wood, again just turn a small area till the spanner slips over the tenon, then turn the rest of the tenon to that size. One tip i got when boat building which i still use occasionally is to soak the tenon for example in glycerine and water mix, even sugar dissolved in water will sort of do the job, the wood then expands drawing in the disolved sugar solution, when the wood dries out the sugars crystalize within the wood and reduce the amount that the wood shrinks again once it dries out. Darren

 

[Blister]

You could try a thick wide elastic band , I have used these when holding work , also good if you don't want to mark things when holding :wink:

 

[John Davis]

How about cutting a narrow V groove down the dowl then glue and knock in a thin wedge to expand the dowl slightly. It may end up a little elliptical but the copper can be flattened to suit.

 

[Bodrighy]

The point of the ferrule is to stop the wood splitting so for something like a file you can probably do without it. Otherwise do as Scrums says and make another one. Paking works loose IME whatever you use.

Pete

 

[Setch]

I've wrapped tennons with a long thick shaving taken with a coarse set plane. You need to experiment a bit to get a shaving which is flexible enough to bend around the tennon, without being so thin it tears like paper.

 

[dennyom]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the replies. I did go down to the shop and make another one. This one was better but not quit how I would like it yet. I will trying another today, should get it pretty quickly. Itmt there are two that I can try fixes on, and some good suggestions from you folks on how to do them. The chisels that came with the lathe need to be sharpned too and that might help with controlling the cuts too. I'll let you know how things worked out and maybe post a pic or two. Again Thanks

 

[dennyom]

Hi everyone,

Well I tried the solution suggested by Stetch. I worked great. I tried to post a couple of photos abut got a message that the file was too big. Ill have to work on that.

 

[dennyom]

I put the photos up on photo bucket here are the links.

http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu32 ... dle_01.jpg

http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu32 ... dle_02.jpg

http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu32 ... dle_03.jpg