I need to bore out some wood grips that contain aluminum trim rings and was wondering which method would put less stress on the glue joints, mounting on the lathe or using the drill press? One of my concerns is not to mar the shoulder by mounting in the lathe. There is a lot of material that will need to be removed going from .250" to about .650". I plan on using a number of bits working my way slowly. I certainly cannot afford to have any glue joint fail.

Thanks,
Jeff

Muskyfsh

Normally you'd leave a shoulder on the end for chucking. Failing that, you're almost resigned to having to use the drill press with a good clamp for keeping things true.

If your glue joints are any good, they won't fail. If they do, then it was something you'd prefer to have happen before you mount the assembly onto your rod.

.............

Jeff,
When I have done this before, I use the lathe.
I take the end of the grip and use low tack blue masking tape to put about 6 wraps of tape around the handle to prevent marring.

Then, I use a ball bearing rod rest at the tail stock end of the lathe - also wrapping the handle multiple times with low tack masking tape to prevent marks on the handle. If you already have a center marked on the end to be drilled, or a smaller hole already in the handle, use that hole with the same size bit in the tailstock chuck to do the final adjustments of the rod rest to insure that the handle is perfectly centered in the lathe.
Then, when drilling, be sure to have the tail stock distance set, such that the drill bit is resting against the end of the handle before turning on the lathe. By starting and stopping the lathe with the drill touching or inside the handle, the drill inward pressure also tends to hold the handle secure in the head stock.

Here is a picture of the rod rest that I made a long time ago for use with my full length rod lathe. I have used a 1/4 inch bolt to mount the rod rest on my full length rod lathe, so the same mount works very well on my standard lathe by simply using a backing plate under the lathe bed, with a hole in it to allow the rod rest to nicely clamp to the lathe bed.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Another thing that works very well if you already have a hole started in the grip. i.e. to use a tapered reamer in your tail stock chuck. Use a caliper to mark the finished hole size on the tapered reamer. Then, go ahead and start the lathe with the headstock in the chuck and use the tapered reamer to enlarge the size of the hole at the end of the grip to the finished size. Then, you can go ahead and just use the finish size bit to drill the hole. You will get no hole tear out or similar, because the reamer has already created the perfectly centered hole of the right size at the end of the grip.

Basically a hand reamer that looks like this one:

[www.google.com]

Remove the handle, chuck it into your 1/2 inch tail stock chuck and you will be set to ream the hole to the correct finished size.

Any time that I want a centered hole in an object, I always do my best to fit it to the lathe, so that I can spin the object and leave the drill bit stationary. By using this method, the hole has to be in, and remain in the center of the object.

By the way, here is another picture of the rod rest that I made many years ago to support rods on my full length rod lathe. Basically, 3 inexpensive skate board bearings with a 5/16th hole mounted on a 5/16th bolt that was had holes drilled and tapped into two pieces of aluminum bar stock. The two bottom holes are adjusted such that the bearings nearly touch. The top hole is adjusted so that it is perfectly centered in the exact center of the two lower holes. This creates a perfect triangle to capture the work in progress. The two bearing bar stock pieces are mounted on 1/4 inch rod which has been threaded on the lower end to thread into the 1/4 inch thick base. Locking nuts are placed on the vertical rods to secure the rods to the base. Then each end of the horizontal bar stock is drilled and tapped for thumb screws to put pressure on the vertical rods to maintain the position of the bar stock on the rods.
Finally, a 1/4 inch hole is drilled in the center of the base to mount to the lathe bed.

[www.rodbuilding.org]


Roger

Jeff,
By the way, on future projects, drill your center holes "before" you do the finish work on the handle. That way, the hole will be finished and centered - before you complete the outside of the grip.

If you do find that you don't have the setup to properly drill the hole on the finished grip, you might just start over, drill the hole, and then make a new grip.

Good luck
REW



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2013 11:21AM by roger wilson.

Roger,

Thank you so much for your response and your insight. I would like to attach a pic to this post but cannot figure out how to do that (old school). As you can well imagine there is a lot of time involved in the build and the last thing I need is a failure in a glue joint due to heat build up. This build was glued with Titebond Poly with the recommendation of a well known builder we all know. I feel that I may use the drill press because it turns at the lowest setting of 540 rpm and my lathe at 840 rpm. It will take many drill bit sizes to eventually end up to my ID specs. I would really like to send you a pic of what I am talking about if only I knew how. There seems to be no way to add an attachment that I can find with this post. If that is possible please let me know how that is done.

Sincerely,
Jeff Leonard

Muskyfsh

Jeff, post the pic in the RBO photo page, or e-mail it to me and I'll post it for you



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2013 09:21PM by Billy Vivona.

Jeff, your post about all the drilling steps has the alarm bells ringing. You are boring wood, not steel. Use wood boring bits that cut on the outside with the spurs and DO NOT step drill. Drill your final size with one pass. Metal drill bits can wander when they hit hard spots in the wood, espicially small bits. It's the bit and not the wood that goes off center. The wood bits will cut the wood and the aluminum like butter. Hope this helps.

Mac

Jeff,
To post pictures, go to the picture section of this forum.
Log in, and then just click on the button to upload a picture.
After you have the picture uploaded and displayed in the picture section, just go to the address at the top of the page, and copy the address.

Now, come back to this page, and after writing your message, simply paste in the address of the picture from the picture section of the forum that you just added.

Roger

Whitey, I think a photo would be worth a thousand words If you want send me or Billy the photo and we can post it for you. It would let others understand your dilemma on drilling this blank. The blank is a 360 degree herringbone with aluminum, ebony and maple, not your ordinary object to drill. It contains many different angles edges and materials and took many hours to assemble. I think looking at this from all angles and getting as much feedback as you can before drilling is wise.

Thanks Mark,
I will definitely send you and Billy a pic of the grip so that we all know what I am up against. I just felt that a break of any kind in the glue bond would really set me back. After speaking with you I pressed the 1/4 " rod off the build and the aluminum bond broke loose. I had turned this to the point that it was as smooth as Billy's @*#". Now I have to glue up again and run the fear of drilling out a lot of material only to break a glue joint again.

Sincerely,
Jeff Leonard

Muskyfsh

Billy put up a couple of photos of Jeff's work [www.rodbuilding.org] [www.rodbuilding.org] take a look and see if any one has a trick or tip to drilling this with out damage. I'm sure that Jeff would be happy to entertain any ideas, the work is truly something that you won't see very often as there is a lot of work involved to glue up all the pieces for a 360 degree herringbone like this.

I would bore it out on the drill press in a padded vice to the size of a large reel seat arbor. Glue in the arbor and ream that to fit the rod blank.

______________________________________
Super Tight Lines......Don

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but: I just looked up ebony in the "Good Wood Handbook" and under workability the last sentence says, "It does not glue well". It sounds like the aluminum and maple are not the problem. You may want to rethink this grip. It could come apart in the users hand the first time he uses it. If you are deadset on using ebony, try wiping it down at least twice with lacquer thinner and drying it well and then try glueing it up and see if you can break it apart. I think that is your only chance with ebony. It has too much natural oil in it.

Mac

Thanks John,
I will do that but I feel confident that once it is glued up to the blank I will not have any issues. Time will only tell, when my poor friend looses the fish of a life time he can only blame me. I said friend not client! Thank you all for your help.

Sincerely,
Jeff Leonard

Muskyfsh