My wife is a fabric designer and I am renovating a washing mangle for her. I
have two wood related problems

Turning a new roller
Nobody round here (Somerset, UK) knows how to turn a 20" roller (3.5"
diameter with a 1" hole down the middle) to go onto a .75" shaft. They all
want to mill a groove into two bits of wood, stick them together and then
turn to the required diameter. £75 is the lowest price to date! Any ideas?

Choice of wood
What's the best wood for a washing mangle roller? Liz would be very upset if
splinters or black discolouration on the rollers transferred to her fabric

Can anybody in this group advise, please?

Ben

It's on www.familyclay.org.uk/extras if you're curious

Ben Clay wrote:
snip
Turning a new roller
Nobody round here (Somerset, UK) knows how to turn a 20" roller (3.5"
diameter with a 1" hole down the middle) to go onto a .75" shaft. They all
want to mill a groove into two bits of wood, stick them together and then
turn to the required diameter. £75 is the lowest price to date! Any ideas?
snip

You already answered that question. Turning. As in, a lathe. Might want
to drill the hole first if you don't have a hollow tailstock. It's a
trivial job, you might want to see who the local turners are. %75 is
exorbitant unless you are making it from an amazing wood.

Dave in Fairfax
--
reply-to doesn't work
use:
daveldr at att dot net
American Association of Woodturners
http://www.woodturner.org
Capital Area Woodturners
http://www.capwoodturners.org/
PATINA
http://www.patinatools.com

I'd find a friend with a metal lathe, to be sure of getting a true cylinder.
I've never done it, but I think you could bore through the headstock. Make
two bushings to hold a bit centered in the headstock, hold the bit in a
brace, and bore as far as you can, but not more than half way. Turn the
piece around and do the same from the other end. By boring from each end,
you are at least sure of centering the ends on the rod. If the final size
bit won't go through the headstock, just ream in a couple of steps using an
electric drill, after the piece is off the lathe.

Just think, they started boring rifle barrels a couple of hundred years ago,
with hand power!
Wilson

"Ben Clay" wrote in message
...
My wife is a fabric designer and I am renovating a washing mangle for her.
I have two wood related problems

Turning a new roller
Nobody round here (Somerset, UK) knows how to turn a 20" roller (3.5"
diameter with a 1" hole down the middle) to go onto a .75" shaft. They all
want to mill a groove into two bits of wood, stick them together and then
turn to the required diameter. £75 is the lowest price to date! Any ideas?

Choice of wood
What's the best wood for a washing mangle roller? Liz would be very upset
if splinters or black discolouration on the rollers transferred to her
fabric

Can anybody in this group advise, please?

Ben

Take a piece of wood big enough to do the job. Bore a hole in it. Push in a
mandrel. Mount in lathe and turn to size. Push out mandrel. Easy job. You
just haven't found the right guy.

"Ben Clay" wrote in message
...
Nobody round here (Somerset, UK) knows how to turn a 20" roller (3.5"
diameter with a 1" hole down the middle) to go onto a .75" shaft. They all
want to mill a groove into two bits of wood, stick them together and then
turn to the required diameter. £75 is the lowest price to date! Any ideas?

Choice of wood
What's the best wood for a washing mangle roller? Liz would be very upset
if
splinters or black discolouration on the rollers transferred to her fabric

Can anybody in this group advise, please?

Ben

"Ben Clay" wrote in message
...
My wife is a fabric designer and I am renovating a washing mangle for her.
I
have two wood related problems

Turning a new roller
Nobody round here (Somerset, UK) knows how to turn a 20" roller (3.5"
diameter with a 1" hole down the middle) to go onto a .75" shaft. They all
want to mill a groove into two bits of wood, stick them together and then
turn to the required diameter. £75 is the lowest price to date! Any ideas?

Choice of wood
What's the best wood for a washing mangle roller? Liz would be very upset
if
splinters or black discolouration on the rollers transferred to her fabric

Can anybody in this group advise, please?

Using a long-borer (ala standard lamps) thru your headtsock or a hollow
tail-stock is the way to go. You haven't mentioned what species of timber
you want to use, so keep in mind that in many woods the grain will cause
significant deviation... I've had up to around 5mm deviation when simply
boring a 7mm dia hole through a 5cm pen blank!

I'd suggest drilling a pilot hole to the half-way point and then either
reverse the timber or bore from the other end (assuming you have both hollow
head AND tail-stock)
and then eye-balling it to check that both bores are true to each other. If
not, you're better off starting afresh with a new blank, it's a 50/50
skill/luck ratio for this length. Once you have a true bore, then enlarge
it with a drill of the final size. If you have intermediate bits I'd
suggest working up thru the sizes, giving it the eyeball test after each
pass... that seems to reduce the luck factor.

BTW, a centre-point bit is best for the pilot hole, but bits with angled
cutting edges (ala HSS metal drills) are better for rebores, as they tend to
self-centre in the pilot hole. Old-fashioned auger bits or spade bits are
near useless for this type of work..

- Andy

One more thing I shoulda mentioned: take your time and bore _slowly_ only
advance the drill a couple of mm at a atime annd pull it back frequently to
evacuate the sawdust before advancing again.

Whether you use a pilot hole or take a risk and try to drill it all in one
pass, you should be ablt to tell if it's starting to deviate; you should be
able to feel the shaft start to vibrate. If the shaft starts trying to turn
in your hand with more force than "usual" it's either clogged with dust or
deviating too much. Pull back, evacuate the dust and advance the tool back
to about 1/2"-1" from where you were. Then advance even more slowly, a min
or two, perhaps, to recover that last bit. With luck it'll "side-scrape"
the hole and won't simply try to follow the original path. Repeat as
necessary until you're sure it's running true again.

Burnt offerings to the wood gods should not be overlooked in this procedure.

Luck!

-Andy