77 - Sliding Door Shop Cabinet, страница 4
TIPS & TECHNIQUES Readers' Tips Beam Compaee■ I needed to lay out some large circles for a project recently. And knowing how important accuracy is when making large circles, I built a beam compass to meet my needs. This compass is simple, easy to use, and changing circle size is as easy as simply sliding the dowel. The arm is made from a four foot length of Vs^dia. dowel rod with a slot and V4" hole drilled in one end to hold a pencil. The pencil is clamped in place by drilling a second W hole perpendicular to the first to fit a bolt and wing nut (illustration below). The compass is adjusted by a 4"-long piece of W'-dia PVC pipe drilled and tapped to accept a 5/V-dia. nylon bolt. The bolt holds the dowel at the desired length. A 3d nail inserted in a pre-drilled hole in the bottom of the PVC acts as the pivot for the compass as shown in the drawing and photo below. The bottom of the dowel is sanded flat to accommodate the nail head and prevent dowel rotation. Now, just slide the dowel in place and adjust it to the radius you want and you're ready to lay out a circle. JeffStreba Salt Lake City, Utah Lathe Tool Rack ■ To keep my turning tools close at hand, I built a simple tool rack to attach to my lathe. Now my lathe tools are in easy reach and I don't have to go hunting all over my shop whenever I want to use them. Another feature I like is that the ends of the tools stick out the back and are readily visible. This makes it easy to identify the turning tool I need when changing tools. The rack is simply made out of a piece of 2" x 2" stock cut to length (depending on the number of tools you have). I then glued a wider piece of V4'1 plywood to the rack. This let me clamp the rack to the lathe leg as shown in the illustration on the left Five lV8"-dia. holes were drilled for my turning tools. But you may want to vary the size and number of holes to fit your specific tools. The holes are drilled at an angle of 30° so the tools won't vibrate out of the holes when the lathe runs. The tool rack can be bolted to the leg or clamped in place if you want to j move it around. Gordon Hildebrant North Java, New York 4 ShopNotes No. 77 |
