"Michael Koblic" wrote in message
...
I picked up a few brass candle sticks in garage sales. I wanted to use one
for a brass sundial. It has a long stem and a cup for the candle. The stem
is irregular with some patterns on it.

I cut the stem off where I thought it would be just about right length for
the gnomon. I tried to "turn" it in my old drill press. It turned out not
so bad, I put a 10-32 thread on one end and tried to re-profile the rest
of it. It is about 5 cm long so I thought I would use the live center I
have for my sanding drums.
like this one:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.a...02&cat=1,42500

This is where I run into a bit of a problem - drilling the centre hole.

The candlestick was made in India, I am not sure how. Either way not very
well so the whole thing is a bit asymmetrical. I tried to determine the
centre of the end to drill a concentric hole but found it almost
impossible. In the end when hooked up to the live centre (which is loose
on the drill press table) the live centre was running around in a small
circle whatever I did.

Now I understand (I hope!) that on a lathe the live centre on the taistock
is lined up with the centre of the chuck on the head stock and the hole
will be drilled in the centre by default. Not having a lathe the best way
I found to drill centres in a round stock is to make a paper tube around
it and use a tight fitting transfer punch to mark the centre. This works
fine if the stock is cylindrical, not on a candle stick stem which is not.

I found a thread on this group from 2004 which provided several options of
which the only one viable in my situation would have been to use a 3-jaw
chuck to center under the drill press spindle and then substitute the
centre drill. And I am indeed looking for a cheap 3-jaw chuck.

Are there any other suggestions ("Buy a lathe!" does not count)?

The other thing that puzzles me (and please note that the nearest I have
been to a lathe is in the movies and picutres in books) is how do you
start turning something that is irregular in shape? Or even how do you
turn a round piece out of a square stock? Does it not do horrible things
to the cutting tool when it contacts only at the corners? Or is there a
trick to get the shape roughly round first somehow? I want to change the
shape of the brass cup but the initial attempt was somewhat discouraging.

Thanks for all your patience,

--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC



An option to buyalathe is cobble together a facsimilie from surplus.

The surplus houses I've been to have mechanical components, or specif
purpose machines that have been retired.
We've bought lots of little machines for the components.

Sometimes you can get a huge pile of stuff for around $100us

also, scrounge your local scrap dealer for compnents.

For example, a front-wheel-drive auto spindle/bearing assembly is not far
removed from a lathe spindle.

Early metal turning was done on what were essentially wood lathes, with
similar turning tools.

Wood lathes are cheep, and/or easy to build.