On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:37:09 -0800, Jon Anderson wrote:

wrote:

I was thinking he meant with a square collet. Actually, with a square
collet, you may not even need a spin index, just a square collet
block, and mount the collet in the block at 45 degrees...

That would require indexing the collet to get the stock at
the 45 degrees. Starting with round stock means more passes
but much lighter cuts. It still leaves me with either a part
I have to handle twice in the lathe to do the grooving, or
waste a significant bit of material leaving extra in the
collet. Though low production, it's still a production
process and flipping a collet block 400 times gets tedious.

Jon

Hey - if it's fairly soft aluminium and you have a good-sized lathe, press
an octagonal die over the stock with the tailstock. Drill, thread, press,
cut, all with one instance of work-holding.

How much is he going to sell these bows for? My sister told me how much
her hi-end bow was once and it made my eyes open *quite* wide.