Making a Plumb bob on the lathe
I have no prior experience in using a lathe So after Deans demonstration on it I decided to have a go at creating a plumb bob.
Problems I found:
I found when using the lather I would often get mixed up in which way I had to turn the wheel, this occasionally resulted in cutting my work where I was not meant to, this is probably due to my dyslexia as I often get confused between right and left! As I found this difficult then I am sure that many pupils in school will also have this problem. To help with this it may be a good idea to tell students to stop the machine before moving the wheels to adjust for the next cut so that they can see which way they are moving the tools, also creating a sign near or above the machine clearly labelling the directions of the turns may help student.
I also found that it was incredibly tempting to want to remove any sworf that collected round my material, although I did not do this I think that it is very important to be aware that some pupils may automatically go to remove any sowrf without thinking so it is important to remind pupils not to do this
When it comes to drilling into the work, it is easy to end up breaking drill bits as I found out! It is important to work slowly and make sure you use a pecking motion, if you work to fast the drill bit can weld itself inside your material because of the heat and friction caused so by using the pecking motion it reduces the chances as you are removing the sworf that can weld in the hole and allowing the material time to cool. However if you turn the drill bit to fast then you can still easily break a drill bit, because of the large mechanical advantage of the wheel you need to ensure you are drilling slowly.
I have no prior experience in using a lathe So after Deans demonstration on it I decided to have a go at creating a plumb bob.
Problems I found:
I found when using the lather I would often get mixed up in which way I had to turn the wheel, this occasionally resulted in cutting my work where I was not meant to, this is probably due to my dyslexia as I often get confused between right and left! As I found this difficult then I am sure that many pupils in school will also have this problem. To help with this it may be a good idea to tell students to stop the machine before moving the wheels to adjust for the next cut so that they can see which way they are moving the tools, also creating a sign near or above the machine clearly labelling the directions of the turns may help student.
I also found that it was incredibly tempting to want to remove any sworf that collected round my material, although I did not do this I think that it is very important to be aware that some pupils may automatically go to remove any sowrf without thinking so it is important to remind pupils not to do this
When it comes to drilling into the work, it is easy to end up breaking drill bits as I found out! It is important to work slowly and make sure you use a pecking motion, if you work to fast the drill bit can weld itself inside your material because of the heat and friction caused so by using the pecking motion it reduces the chances as you are removing the sworf that can weld in the hole and allowing the material time to cool. However if you turn the drill bit to fast then you can still easily break a drill bit, because of the large mechanical advantage of the wheel you need to ensure you are drilling slowly.
Eeeek....broken dill bit in part of my plum bob! had to then part it off, but being aware there may have been a drill bit in the middle where it was being parted off, lucky though the drill bit was not in too far!
Les helped me to get out the drill bit, it had not welded in so the work was salvageable! It just made it awkward when creating the screw thread (Die)