Lathe Drilling Pointers

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Wheaties

Member
Joined
May 8, 2009
Messages
714
Location
Omaha, NE
Drilled my first blank on my lathe. Worked fairly well. I discovered the "wondering bit" issue and have read that thread so I think I can correct that. The problem I have was over heating. I set my lathe on the slowest setting (430 rpm) and went slow and cleard the chips out often, but still got it pretty warm. The blank was fine but I am worried for more sensitive woods in the future. Is this normal to get some heat, or is my technique way off?
 
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Wheaties

Member
Joined
May 8, 2009
Messages
714
Location
Omaha, NE
Get a drill doctor and sharpen your bits. Some heat is normal, but will be proportional to how sharp the bit is.

The bit is brand new. First time ever used. I know they are not always as sharp as they need to be right away, but it seems pretty sharp when I looked at it.
 

bradh

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2005
Messages
688
Location
Aurora, Ontario, Canada.
You are doing the right things. The bit wandering maybe creating much of the heat. Fix the wander and the heat will drop.
Also, make sure you do not advance the bit with too much force. Different woods act differently, if you get a wood that generates more heat; advance the bit slower and consider stopping and let things cool.
 

Wheaties

Member
Joined
May 8, 2009
Messages
714
Location
Omaha, NE
You are doing the right things. The bit wandering maybe creating much of the heat. Fix the wander and the heat will drop.
Also, make sure you do not advance the bit with too much force. Different woods act differently, if you get a wood that generates more heat; advance the bit slower and consider stopping and let things cool.

I didn't consider the wandering to be the cause, but that makes sense. I will give that a try. Thanks
 

jkeithrussell

Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
1,277
Heat is normal. You are driving a chunk of metal through a spinning piece of wood -- it is going to generate some heat no matter what you do. Too much heat is bad, of course, but some heat is normal. If you are not getting smoke or burn marks, you are probably doing it just right.
 

leehljp

Member Liaison
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
9,314
Location
Tunica, Mississippi,
Zach,

From some of the long experienced people here I learned that very brittle woods, more specifically snakewood, has to be treated with the utmost care. Drill 1/4 inch or so and let the heat dissipate over an hour, drill another 1/4 inch, let the heat dissipate.

Actually the above scenario is on the FAST side for some. A few people drill, and wait a day to drill again. It might take a week and more to finish drilling a single blank. The purpose of the elongated wait is to allow the blank's humidity and temp to acclimatize before moving on. Snakewood for some is VERY sensitive.

This is probably the most unusual wood to work with but if I were drilling mammoth ivory, I would treat it the same way.

Some pens and woods can be pushed along at a good pace but some demand respect.
 

artistwood

Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
177
Location
bloomington, in
well said, hank. thanks for the warning on snakewood. i usually drill slow enough but would probably have totaled a snakewood blank.......bear
 

TBone

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
Messages
1,811
Location
Roanoke Rapids, NC, USA.
An air hose can also be used to cool the drill bit and helps on the blank if you blow some chips out of the hole. Won't speed it up much, especially on sensitive wood but more like a little extra insurance. Drill bits are never sharp enough.
 

Fred

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Joined
Feb 18, 2007
Messages
3,557
Location
N.E. Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A.
I agree with Tommy's comments. New bits can always be improved on as the manufacturer makes them as sharp as possible, but handling, packaging, shipping, etc. can - and often does - cause some degree of injury to the cutting edges.

I also highly recommend a Drill Doctor to be added to the shop's inventory. BTW, get the big model as it has much more capacity and other advantages.

The use of a blast of air is also a great idea to "cool things down." If the bit is too hot to touch when removed you are probably cutting into the wood too fast. Metal drilling is a different story altogether!

There appropriate speeds to use when drilling different materials and charts for recommended speeds are available on line or often in magazines. Still though, experience will dictate what works best for your setup.

I never would recommend water to be used for cooling a drilling operation for anything in our hobby work ... to much mess to clean up and too little 'good' to be realized IMHO.

In an effort to stop the wandering bit ... drill a pilot hole with a smaller bit and then step up to the proper sized bit. Just drill 0.5" or so into the blank and then step up in bit size. :biggrin:
 

PenPal

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
2,708
Location
Canberra, A.C.T., Australia.
Drill Bits

I have drilled thousands of pen blanks using a drill press and occasionally a lathe( metal for extreme accuracy) I include Snakewood, Corian and one of our hardest to drill Hairy Oak. Never had a drill wander, always use DeWalt Extreme 2 HSS-G 7mm for Slimlines and get a huge number of drillings from each bit and at around 5 Aus Dollars each never have considered sharpening on a cost per drilling basis. The drill is made in the USA after all and has a small actual drill point, was designed to drill stainless steel, has a hex cut stem, no slipping in the chuck.

As a home metal worker it gave me an increased awareness of accuracy and a very high expectation for lathe accuracy and engineering. My conclusion is we expect too much from our wood lathes in the accuracy department.

With my Taiwanese Bench Drill the first thing I did before Wood Pens were in my mind was to replace the crap bearings that came with the drill, chuck the cheap motor and install a
1HP 240 volt motor. When I did this work on the drill press I spent over a day really accurately setting up the table,drilling vice etc to provide some certainty of operation. I drill a couple of hundred pen blanks at a time no trouble , no exit disasters, no plate of wood to meet the drill coming through. I note as an electrician in a former life electric motors have a specification of just so many stops and starts design in a particular time and to avoid the surge of current every start up prepare the blanks beforehand, leave the drill on continually and do a batch at a time. I bought hundreds of spare brasses to enable me to do this.

Now in case you say he must have very accurately cut blanks far from it most all my blanks are cut on the bandsaw with no ruled lines across the grain nearly always and to follow the grain patterns best. I use an XY axis vice that gives movement front,back and side to side, the vice has three vees in the vertical position and one full vee in the horizontal position so later I use the vice in the horizontal grip with the glued up blank after facing by eye on a disk sander to ream the face using a step drill reamer I bought many years ago.

Lest you think this is obsessive whenever I do something repeatedly I try to simplify and dedicate equipment to do the job. I make no business from wood pens live within my limited funds as an age pensioner aged nearly 75 yrs old now and having fun making pens.

Now I envy the tremendous oportunities in America with your large population and great mail order methods with every known contact at your fingertips compared with the scattered population etc and twenty odd million inhabitants in a country about the same size as yours in America.

Regards from down under and enjoy coming into better weather as we swing into winter soon.
Peter.
 
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