Originally posted by palmermethod
<br />... One of my (many) problems was drilling slightly off center . Is it possible to pre-drill the blank and mount the blank on a wooden dowel during the knot cutting process? It seems that that might solve my off center drilling? Newbie question.
Hi Bob,
Actually Sirik has nothing to do with the tutorial, she's my sweetie and we just named the website the way we did so our RV'ing friends would have an easy name to remember when seeing our travel photos.
I composed that little tutorial after doing a couple knot designs and dozens of members were emailing me asking how I did this or that.
That was a few months ago and since then I have learned that drilling on the lathe affords the most accurately centered holes. I now spend most of my time building the blanks, trying out different ideas and the actual turning and finishing is only a small part of the task. With so much time invested, the last thing you want is to drill a hole slightly off center and ruin the whole piece.
Rather than pre-drilling, I would suggest the following:
1. Do your segment work. BUT rather than cut the blanks completely in half, saw only 80-90% through the blanks to help maintain continuity. Skiprat had a nice thread showing the benefits of not sawing the blanks entirely in half as I did.
2. Once all the segments are assembled and the glue has dried, mount the blank on a lathe between two centers and turn it round.
3. Once round, I chuck my blanks into a Beall collet chuck and drill with a bit chucked into a MT-2 Jacobs chuck.
I have used my Nova G3 chuck to hold the blanks while drilling but prefer the Beall collets.
Have fun!
George
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