Francis Wood wrote:
Bob,
I mount the chanter in a jig mounted on the cross slide and mill out the slots
with a milling bit held in the lathe chuck. That works fine. More recently,
I've bought a small milling machine and intend to do the same operation with
that.
I'd guess that your proposed method of using a flex drive system accurately and
securely mounted on the cross slide could work very well, but will need extra
care.
If you're proposing to do this with the chanter mounted between centres, then
I'd suggest the following:
- Ensure that the chuck is completely locked and unable to revolve. Any play
will spoil your work.
- Devise some support for the chanter along its length since it will be fairly
'whippy' when turned to final diameters.
- Because of the above, very light cuts! And of course . . .
- Practise on a dummy workpiece first!
I'd add to the above that low-cost flex drives often have quite a lot of
free play lengthwise so that the chuck and bit can move in and out by up
to a mm or so- check that first because it will make accurate depth hard
to achieve. A dremel drill on the vertical slide is good.
For years, I used a router mounted in the vertical slide with a 6mm
collet, using slot drills as cutters.
Also of course see Mike Nelson's website here:
http://www.machineconcepts.co.uk/smallpipes/pipe1.htm
I should add that although I've been a pro maker for eight years and
semi-pro for much longer, I almost never get asked a technical question
and they very rarely come up on this forum.
Similarly, I was a technical advisor to the Lowland and Borders Pipers
Society for several years. When I took the job on, I asked my
predecessor what I would need to do.
"Nothing," he said, "nobody ever asks anything". And he was dead right-
not a question over a three year period!
Cheers
Richard
--
Richard Evans
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