Advice on ring coring jig

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RunnerVince

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Dec 18, 2019
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Ogden, UT
Lately, I've been interested in making rings using the ring cores from Craft Supplies USA. To get a really good ring, you have to get the walls of the hole perfectly straight, and I've had lousy luck so far doing it by hand. There are several different MT2 setups available for just this purpose, but I've got a 1950's Craftsman monotube lathe that uses an MT1. Thus, I'm looking at building my own. I came up with the SketchUp design below that would sit over the lathe tube and use a box-nosed scraper. Assuming that my lathe tube is actually parallel to my spindle, I think this would work well, but I'm open to advice and ideas.
  • Will it be stable enough?
  • Will it be accurate?
  • Will it be durable?
  • Will it encourage or deter me from wanting to do rings?

Ring Coring Jig.png


One thing I'm already thinking is that I don't want to bolt it to my workbench...this would make it too much of a pain to use, so I would end up just not making rings because of the hassel in setting it up. Instead, I think I can just use clamps or bungie cords to pull the near side (the one with the extra piece on the bottom) flush to the tube and then clamp the whole assembly down with a hold-down clamp using a dog hole in the bench.

Another thing I'd do is use wingnuts or a threaded knob of some sort to lock down the sliding component on top. That was just not worth the time to model in SketchUp.

Again, I'd love to hear suggestions, ideas, critiques, and advice.
 
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RunnerVince

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Did you watch the video on the Craft Supplies website on making rings? No jig needed.
Yes, I watched the video. But whether it's me, the nearly 70-year old lathe, or something else, I've not had any luck getting straight walls on the inside of the blank with just my tool, so there's always a gap between the ring core and the blank on one side of the ring. I would just buy Craft Supplies' boring head if my tailstock had an MT2 taper.

So since my current ability after a fair number of attempts is still insufficient, and the "buy a tool for that" solution won't work with my lathe, I'm left with the option of creating my own tool/jig.

So any advice on my jig besides "you don't need it"?
 

hokie

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Falls Church, Virginia
You might want to check this item out: MT2 to MT1 adapter. It allows you to use a MT2 in a lathe with a MT1 taper. As you can see it is less than $10.00 and would allow you to use any MT2 item on the lathe.
I'm pretty sure that adapter does the opposite of what you're asserting. It appears to allow a MT2 lathe to accommodate a MT1 tapered items. For a MT1 late to accommodate a MT2 taper, the adapter would need to be overall quite long in order to fit inside the MT1 female portion and then extend out and widen to fit a MT2 taper.
 

RunnerVince

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Dec 18, 2019
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Ogden, UT
There are adaptors that go from MT1 to MT2. Poke around on your favourite sites and maybe you can find one for a little less.
I've considered the MT1 to MT2 adapter, but because this would drastically increase the distance from the stable headstock to the boring tool tip, I'm not wild about this. I think chatter might be an issue--it might solve this problem but create another just as bad in its place.

I think the adapter might work for using an MT2 live center on my lathe, but even then I'd worry about the tiny amout of flext causing nonconentricity.

Any comments on the jig I've designed? If you think it flat out won't work, that's valid feedback, and I'd love to know why you think that.
 

RunnerVince

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Ogden, UT

Curly

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Unless you have a particular attachment to the lathe start looking for another that has MT2 on both head and tailstock on Kijiji or Craigslist etc in a price range that makes you happy. After you have it put this one up for sale to recoup a little of the cost of upgrading.

As for your jig it looks like it can be made of scrap wood so go for it. If it doesn't work you can make adjustments to it until it does. If you can't get it working the way you want you are only out a little of your time.
 

RunnerVince

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Dec 18, 2019
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Location
Ogden, UT
Update on the jig: I ended up building it because I had the scrap plywood around. It would have been a great success, but I ended up getting the slot for my tool off by about a degree. I had access to a router, but no good clamping surfaces, so setup was kind of a beast, and I'm actually kind of proud I got as close as I did without a router table. Every other aspect of the jig worked perfectly with a little sanding and paste wax.
I could remake that piece fairly easily, but I've encountered some other issues with my lathe, and I'm looking at an upgrade, so I'll consider this a dead project. Thanks for the input everyone.
 
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