Advice Needed: How to Slice a Sofa Foot Cylinder into Two Cylinders?

[penicillin]

My spouse wants me to cut down a few old sofa feet. She wants to slice off part of the feet and use the slices as new feet for our ottoman.

Initially I thought about mounting them to a board and slicing them on the bandsaw. The problem is getting a perfect straight cut, plus the bandsaw marks that get left behind.

I can see the spur and tailstock marks from when the legs were originally turned, so it occurred to me to mount a foot on the lathe and use a parting tool to get a smooth, perfect cut. The issue there is that my spouse wants me to cut down one of the seams. The seams are thin. My parting tool is the standard size - wider than those seams.

How would you cut this foot along one of those two inner seams?

• Cut by hand?
  • I have tools - Japanese hand saws and a typical US-style hand saw.
• Use the lathe and part it?
  • I don't have a thin parting tool. I could try to make a crude one by grinding the end of a hacksaw blade.
  • Is there a safe way to use a handsaw with a slowly turning lathe?
• Make a frame and use the bandsaw?
  • Perfect alignment is always tricky.
  • I don't like bandsaw marks.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

 

[Mortalis]

IMO, I wouldnt bother with the lathe. I'd just use the bandsaw or, if it's only four feet, use a hand saw. It's not really that big a deal.
Cut them on the bandsaw, use a sacrificial 1x2 or 3 pine board attached to a cross side so the pine board extends beyobd the saw blade for 5 -6 inches. Place the three rings against the fence for 'squareness' and cut through the leg wherever the wife wants and the scarificial board will actr as a back stop once the blade cuts through. Reinstall the feet and check for evenness. Sand down the ends of the feet that dont wabble (just a little bit.
In your picture, which seam is the chosen one?

 

[Penultimate]

Do you know anyone with a horizontal bandsaw?

 

[penicillin]

In your picture, which seam is the chosen one?

There are two identical seams. The desired seam to cut is the one of that pair that is closer to the exposed end with the plastic button. In other words, it is the seam that is more-or-less in the middle of the foot.

Do you know anyone with a horizontal bandsaw?

No, but I can make a crude bracket/jig and have a 14 inch bandsaw on hand. It resaws well, and cuts without drift.

Before I peeked at the responses above, my spouse and I talked about mounting it on the lathe powered off, locking it in position to hold it firm, and then cutting it carefully with a Japanese hand saw. With a partner to eyeball it on the other side, the cut should go smooth and straight, and I would not have to build a jig.

I wanted other opinions, especially from those who have tried saws or thin parting tools on the lathe. Just curious.

 

[wouldentu2?]

Great opportunity for a new tool even if it won't work for this

 

[Mortalis]

Before I peeked at the responses above, my spouse and I talked about mounting it on the lathe powered off, locking it in position to hold it firm, and then cutting it carefully with a Japanese hand saw. With a partner to eyeball it on the other side, the cut should go smooth and straight, and I would not have to build a jig.

My experience with the Japanese pull saws is they are great for flush cutting and cutting small diameter p[ieces but I've never had much luck with cutting a straight flat surface across a wid surface and once it begins to veer away from straight is hard to get it back on track because of its flexibility.

 

[Charlie_W]

Note that if cutting with the bandsaw, the piece needs to be held securely in a jig/fixture. Cutting a round item on the bandsaw Is very risky as the blade will grab and it starts to roll the piece …and in the blink of an eye, it has grabbed and yanked into the blade. It can pull your hand in too. Many times, this will result in a bent or broken blade, a good chance of ruining your piece, and causing injury.
So if using the bandsaw, do do with a holding jig.

Lathe/parting tool: you can purchase a 1/16" parting tool. There are a variety.
Note that when parting, you need to make a wider cut for a little clearance. If not, as the parting tool goes deeper, there is more heat and friction. The cut end grain fibers tend to grab the parting tool without the extra clearance. I've seen a parting tool grab and be flung out and went flying. In this one case, it was a turning studio with a high ceiling….. the parting tool landed on top of the bathroom ceiling.
You will still need to use your saw to cut the center because while mounted on the lathe, the pressure of the headstock/tailstock will pinch the parting tool if trying to part completely in two.
Good luck and work smart and safe.

 

[Jarod888]

I would make a thin parting tool from a heavy duty cutoff blade designed for a reciprocating saw. You can pick one up from home Depot or Lowes for 15 bucks or so. Or try your local pawn shop, they may have some cheap ones. Good will is an option too.

You are looking for a fire and rescue blade. Basically they are about an inch wide and 10-12 inches long. If you find one designed for metal, the teeth will be easier to grind off.

When you part them, go in until there is about a quarter of an inch left of wood, then with the lathe off, use your pull saw to finish cutting the apart. Sand down the nub and you should be good.

 

[Mike]

My spouse wants me to cut down a few old sofa feet. She wants to slice off part of the feet and use the slices as new feet for our ottoman.

Initially I thought about mounting them to a board and slicing them on the bandsaw. The problem is getting a perfect straight cut, plus the bandsaw marks that get left behind.

I can see the spur and tailstock marks from when the legs were originally turned, so it occurred to me to mount a foot on the lathe and use a parting tool to get a smooth, perfect cut. The issue there is that my spouse wants me to cut down one of the seams. The seams are thin. My parting tool is the standard size - wider than those seams.

How would you cut this foot along one of those two inner seams?

• Cut by hand?
  • I have tools - Japanese hand saws and a typical US-style hand saw.
• Use the lathe and part it?
  • I don't have a thin parting tool. I could try to make a crude one by grinding the end of a hacksaw blade.
  • Is there a safe way to use a handsaw with a slowly turning lathe?
• Make a frame and use the bandsaw?
  • Perfect alignment is always tricky.
  • I don't like bandsaw marks.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

View attachment 342774

I needed a thin parting tool to make very thin grooves in a pen for turquoise when I first started. I found an old keyhole saw and I had others so I ground off the teeth on my pelt sander and sharpened the end. It works great and I just used it on something a few days ago. Not sure what they cost now, but back then they were about 5 or 6 dollars.

 

[penicillin]

Thanks to everyone for their great and helpful comments. I knew about those 1/16 inch parting tools and had looked at several. All were out of my price range for the limited need. Besides, I have a bunch of worn reciprocating saw blades. It would be fun to make one into a parting tool. Next time, I guess. I sliced the feet just before the last three posts, sorry. I had talked it over with my spouse, and we decided the bandsaw would be fastest and easiest.

I made a KISS jig and found a helpful trick for aligning the cut, which is what I wanted to share with you here. See the photos, below.

• I took a flat board to serve as the jig.
• I drilled three countersunk holes in the board in a rough triangular shape.
  • I lined up the board by eyeball so that the bottom was beyond the "lowest" point on the sofa foot.
  • I lined up a triangle of three screw holes near one end of the board.
    • -> I set it up so the long part of the board would be behind the place in the sofa foot where the cutting edge of the blade contacts the sofa foot. That prevents rotation of the sofa foot by the blade.
  • I lined up the triangle with the point down and the top two screws above the height of the fence on the bandsaw.
• I screwed the board to the foot using one of the top two screw holes, snug. The foot was tight and snug to the board, but could be rotated into a different position.
• I adjusted the foot by rotating it until the seam was in perfect alignment with the bandsaw blade. You could easily sight the seam on the top and the bottom of the seam to see that it was perfectly straight. You could also bring the jig around to the back of the blade to see the exit point.
• Once the jig was adjusted, I screwed and tightened the other two screws.
• The jig forms a tripod with the board edge and the rounded edge of the sofa foot with the blade perfectly aligned with the seam. The board prevents the sofa foot from rotating under the force of the bandsaw blade.
• Keep the board registered against the fence with the bottom of the board and the edge of the sofa foot flat on the table.
• -> Use appropriate push blocks and push sticks. Pay attention to the position of your fingers at all times as you make the cut.

NOTE: This jig assumes that the "top" surface of the foot and the seam to be cut are perfectly parallel to one another. That was a reasonable assumption for our sofa feet, because we could see the lathe marks on the turned feet. We assumed that the feet were parted off in parallel with the turning of the seams. If not, we could have measured distances from different places on the seam to a straightedge laid across the top surface.