Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:23 pm
I found it Nobby, he has a facebook group that's worth a look 'Hand crafted fishing floats', and this is his bit on tube cutters
"Drilling holes for antennae, float stems and metal stabilizers is a job which has always caused problems for the float maker but if the right methods and tools are used this work is no real problem. The main thing to remember is that soft materials do not take kindly to a drill bit, which is liable to tear its way rather than cut and will wander off line at every opertunity. A piece of metal tubing will make a good cutter if it is not too thick in the wall. Such tubing may be picked up around the house and garage in the form of old fishing rods, fuel piping, old telescopic ariels ect
To make a cutter is very simple. Take a length of tubing and check that the chosen end is cleanely cut and squared off and then sharpen this to a cutting edge, using a fine file and taking metal from the outer edge only. Dont overdo this filing, if you make the cutting edge too wafer thin it will buckle each time it encounters a hard spot in cork ect......
Some metal tubing is so thin in the wall that it hardly requires sharpening at all, just cleaning off. The reason for filing the cutter on the outside edge only is to prevent the cut core from jamming in the tubing after the hole has been successfully cut.
Some materials, soft balsa is one, can be bored with small holes by simply pushing a metal rod through from end to end or, from first one end and then the other to meet in the middle, this is a good idea if you want the entrances and exit holes to line up.
I will post a picture of my tubular cutters."
if you look in the 'files' section at the top of his group page there are some good tips
"Drilling holes for antennae, float stems and metal stabilizers is a job which has always caused problems for the float maker but if the right methods and tools are used this work is no real problem. The main thing to remember is that soft materials do not take kindly to a drill bit, which is liable to tear its way rather than cut and will wander off line at every opertunity. A piece of metal tubing will make a good cutter if it is not too thick in the wall. Such tubing may be picked up around the house and garage in the form of old fishing rods, fuel piping, old telescopic ariels ect
To make a cutter is very simple. Take a length of tubing and check that the chosen end is cleanely cut and squared off and then sharpen this to a cutting edge, using a fine file and taking metal from the outer edge only. Dont overdo this filing, if you make the cutting edge too wafer thin it will buckle each time it encounters a hard spot in cork ect......
Some metal tubing is so thin in the wall that it hardly requires sharpening at all, just cleaning off. The reason for filing the cutter on the outside edge only is to prevent the cut core from jamming in the tubing after the hole has been successfully cut.
Some materials, soft balsa is one, can be bored with small holes by simply pushing a metal rod through from end to end or, from first one end and then the other to meet in the middle, this is a good idea if you want the entrances and exit holes to line up.
I will post a picture of my tubular cutters."
if you look in the 'files' section at the top of his group page there are some good tips