My arm is getting tired...

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healeydays

healeydays

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Folks,

I have been using a NOVA Pen Plus Jaws to drill out blanks on my Jet 1014 and boy, is my arm getting tired dealing with the tailstock and all the turning I have been doing. After cutting 20 blanks I feel an indentation in my hand from that handle especially if I'm drilling dense material...

Has anyone come up with a better handle/method to make the turning a bit easier on a Jet?

Mike B

p.s. The Pen Plus Jaws have been fantastic. It was definitely a great buy...
 
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I do all my drilling on the lathe, using a 4 jaw chuck to hold em, I make sure my bit is sharp, and once I have the blank in the chuck, I just use my right hand and gently slide the tailstock forward into the blank, this way you can control the amount of pressure you put on the drill bit, without turning the handle on the tailstock. I have drilled as many as 40 at a time this way. This is my way, and it works for me. Be sure the lathe speed is low. Hope this helps.
 
Shouldn't take much effort at all.

With a sharp drill bit installed, move your tail stock in place, lock it down and advance it using the wheel. When you run out of throw, back it out, move your tail stock up again and repeat.

If it's difficult to advance the tail stock with the hand wheel, then I would suggest sharpening your bits and using a slower feed rate.
 
Carl Fisher said:
Shouldn't take much effort at all.

With a sharp drill bit installed, move your tail stock in place, lock it down and advance it using the wheel. When you run out of throw, back it out, move your tail stock up again and repeat.

If it's difficult to advance the tail stock with the hand wheel, then I would suggest sharpening your bits and using a slower feed rate.
Click to expand...

Carl,

That is what I do, but after 20+ blanks in an hour or two the mind thinks there should be another way...

Mike B
 
I have used the slide method before.....lately I have thought about just turning down a larger wheel to install on the tailstock:question: I'm sure someone has done that out there already.
 
healeydays said:
Carl Fisher said:
Shouldn't take much effort at all.

With a sharp drill bit installed, move your tail stock in place, lock it down and advance it using the wheel. When you run out of throw, back it out, move your tail stock up again and repeat.

If it's difficult to advance the tail stock with the hand wheel, then I would suggest sharpening your bits and using a slower feed rate.
Click to expand...

Carl,

That is what I do, but after 20+ blanks in an hour or two the mind thinks there should be another way...

Mike B
Click to expand...

And it is, get a metal lathe with an automatic feed, adapting the drill chuck to it.

For the wood lathe, I cam thing of a couple of ways to adapt a small motor with some torque to get the tail stock worm screw move forwards and back, not that difficult to engineer, in my view.

Cheers
George
 
healeydays said:
Carl Fisher said:
Shouldn't take much effort at all.

With a sharp drill bit installed, move your tail stock in place, lock it down and advance it using the wheel. When you run out of throw, back it out, move your tail stock up again and repeat.

If it's difficult to advance the tail stock with the hand wheel, then I would suggest sharpening your bits and using a slower feed rate.
Click to expand...

Carl,

That is what I do, but after 20+ blanks in an hour or two the mind thinks there should be another way...

Mike B
Click to expand...

Mike: Don't take this the wrong way, but you might want to have
someone else sharpen your bit for you.. because a sharp bit should
fly through the material. a freshly sharpened (but incorrectly sharpened)
bit will take forever to get through material, might not get through the
material, might blow out and will probably overheat the blank and cause
it to crack somewhere down the line.

Have someone else sharpen your bit and see if there's a difference.
I'm betting it'll be huge. Could be your wheel is bad.. or even the wrong
one for the job. Or maybe the technique isn't right for the angle you
need. Could be anything. I know some guys can hand sharpen by eye,
but I can't do it.

As for the hand crank on the tailstock? I have a tubed blank that I never
ended up using. Makes a bigger and more comfortable handle! Slide it on,
crank away. (that little peg on the tailstock is just too small for comfort)
 
I made an add on. Used a 1/4" thick x 1 1/4" w x 8" long piece of oak sanded smooth all over. Drill a hole in one end that fits the Jet "knob" and it's easier.
That's what I did.
WB
 
The problem I had with using the slide method, is that when the tailstock is not locked down to the ways, there is a certain amount of vertical play. I had to press firmly down, in addition to sliding forward, to keep the bit properly centered.
 
I use 2 chucks to allow one to cool while I'm drilling the next blank.

As others have stated I try to advance the tailstock on the ways without turning the handle but it doesn't always work.

I use a cut off toothbrush handle in my variable speed drill to retract the tailstock after drilling the blank if I have to advance the tailstock.
 
Well the answers are as expected. There is no easy workaround for this and my 9-5 desk jockey, callous free hands will just have to endure. Thanks all for your responses..

Mike B
 
healeydays said:
Folks,

I have been using a NOVA Pen Plus Jaws to drill out blanks on my Jet 1014 and boy, is my arm getting tired dealing with the tailstock and all the turning I have been doing. After cutting 20 blanks I feel an indentation in my hand from that handle especially if I'm drilling dense material...

Has anyone come up with a better handle/method to make the turning a bit easier on a Jet?

Mike B

p.s. The Pen Plus Jaws have been fantastic. It was definitely a great buy...
Click to expand...


Make you an adapter thingy that fits on the tail stock handle. The other end goes into a hand drill with reverse on it :) that way you can regulate the speed of the in/out motion of the drill bit by how hard you squeeze the trigger. Since the hand drills have reverse it's easy to remove them.

Same with the side bar on the tailstock. You can make an extention so give you better leverage and do less work with your hands/wrist/arms.
 
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