Turning PVC

[wayneis]

Yo Yo and those of you that turn PVC, I have a question. How do you keep the long ribbons from getting all tangled up around everything. It took me forever last night to make a pen out of PVC and it was pretty frustrating. Outside of stopping the lathe every few minutes to untangle the mess, what do some of you do?


Wayne

 

[Rick Prevett]

When I turned some plastic, I pulled up my DC 4" hose right up to the piece. Will some luck, I was actually able to direct those long strings of plastic straight into the DC. (Note to self: check to see if the DC impeller is clogged with plastic string).

But usually I did have to stop the lathe every couple minutes and de-tanglefy my post, my tool rest, the spindle, the tail stock... []

Anybody else figure this out?

rick

 

[Bev Polmanteer]

If you figure it out, let me know. I've been stopping constantly to untangle the little critters!

 

[YoYoSpin]

Wayne, yeah...that's a challenge. I do the vacuum thing too, just like Rick described.

And, what helps me a lot is wearing one of these really heavy duty gloves on my left hand, that I use to clear away the strings while the lathe is running...the rough surfaces on the glove's finger tips strips away the debris pretty quickly.

 

[wayneis]

Thanks Ed, I'll give that a try. I think that I may even have gloves something like those. Oh, the bowling ball blanks that POC sells, do they do the same thing? I've got some of them and have not got around to trying them.

Wayne

 

[Paul Downes]

YoYo, I cringe when I see someone wearing gloves around spinning mechanical devices. I hope you aren't using them on a large lathe with lots of HP. I mean no offence but, I have seen some really nasty accidents. A drill press can be very unforgiving. It happens so quick. Please be careful!!!!

 

[daledut]

When I turned my PVC I found 2 things helped.

First if you use a bevel rubbing cut and take shallow passes, the ribbons seemed to stream out over the back of the lathe and not wrap around as much.

Second when the did get built up I simply held my gouge in the path of the flapping ribbons. If the gouge is reasonable sharp it will cut the ribbons smaller and clear them from the spindle. You still have to stop a few time to clear, but not as much and without this technique.

I too cringe at the thought of glove near a lathe. I used to do it and thought it was quite safe right up to the time a glove finger caught and darn near broke my wrist. Good thing my lathe does not have a real beefy motor, it stalled and allowed me to switch it off and extrtact myself. Each to their own, but please be careful.