charlieb wrote:

So where is that illusive line between wood turning - and
machining?

charlie b


It would not be unreasonable, I think, to conclude that there never was
a distinction that went any deeper than the typical materials each dealt
in and the amount of math involved. It takes a LOT of trig to describe
the shape of a baseball bat, bowl or pen. And that stuff by Bin Pho and
his merry band with all its little cutouts and open-ended arcs? Puleeeeze!

Volutes and involutes, tangents, FIM, TIR, concentricity, runout ... the
list could probably go on for pages. Yup, we could muck things up proper
if we half put our hearts into it.

In fact, we could muck it up enough that a 7th grader would never again
pick up a scraper and a block of cast-off wood to give it a try.

I've been away from that rarified world that machinists and tool & die
makers live in for so long that I'm not even sure if I could speak the
lingo anymore, much less do the math and make the part coming out the
other end of the die look like the drawing says it's supposed to look like.

But I can still make shavings. Made some nice ones today. Tomorrow, God
willing, I'll finish up a desk set from awesomely curly koa. The only
math I did was to calculate a setback from one end because the drawing
was wrongly dimensioned. (It showed how much wood to leave when the
actual important issue was how much tube to expose. Bad dimensioning ...
so I guess I DO remember a LITTLE something from the machine shops.)

Tomorrow I'll do a little more math ... I'll figure out how much money
it's going to take to get me to part company with the set.

Bill


--
http://nmwoodworks.com/cube


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