A little lathe job - plastic handle for winch

[Yorkie]

It's surprising how useful a little lathe can be for little lathe jobs - that is 'little jobs' for 'little lathes'!. I have a telescopic mast for my amateur radio antenna, which is operated by a hand winch and can be extended to 30ft high. Having been licensed since 1974, I lost interest in amateur radio some years ago, but have kept the mast in case the bug were to bite again, but it hasn't, so the mast, which is a bit of an eyesore, has to go. It needs tidying up a bit and one of the little jobs that was needed is to make a new handle for the winch. The old plastic handle had long since fallen apart and all that was left was a rusty piece of rod onto which the handle had fitted.

At the Rufforth autojumble near York that I want to last Saturday with Colin, they sell all sorts of plastics for making bushes etc, so I picked up a couple of 6" long bits of 'Oilon' plastic bar (a type of industrial nylon) for £1.20 each. I've turned one piece down to make the handle, and the other will go into my offcut box for some as yet unknown task!

I've attached a pic of the blank, with the finished handle beside it. A simple little job, - nothing much to shout about, but without a lathe, I'd have struggled to have found a suitable handle. My little Lorch watchmakers lathe, C 1900, given to me in bits by a chum, had languished neglected under my bench for years until Colin encouraged me to clean it up and get it back into working order. I've also attached a pic of the lathe, and of the brass nameplate which Colin kindly made for the collect box, (which I may have posted before). Each letter of the plate, and the brass surround, was cut out by Colin with a jewellers' saw, fixed to the brass background, then painted black, the letters and surround polished and lacquered. How cool is that?!!

There's a pic of my free-standing telescopic radio mast (not fully extended). At the time, I'd erected my DIY wooden scaffold on the utility room roof to fit a digital TV aerial on the other tubular mast attached to the house wall. It's great to have lived long enough to have become a problem to my kids - 'Come down off there dad right away, you aren't safe doing that at your age - will you be told'!! 'Don't worry kids - the ground will break my fall' taunted the old buffer.

[AlanBeckett]

David,
I splendid job, although I suspect you could have done it on your woodwork lathe if pressed.
They're very useful these small lathes. I've been doing a bit of turning this last week but that will be reported elsewhere.
Alan

[Joe]

All right, stop rubbing it in you two.

- Joe

EDIT: Fred the Fiddler has been at my Avatar I see!

[Radio Fixer]

Wow! eat your dinner off that lathe. Splendid name plate as you say ...

Gary

[Retired]

Hi,

By heck David you don't hang around. The "Oilon" won't have got over the jet lag from North Yorkshire to Lincolnshire and already you are attacking it. Great job though and I whole-heartedly agree about the usefulness of a lathe; even a small lathe such as your Lorch will do many turning jobs to high precision. How did you find the Oilon to turn? I've turned plastic and Tufnol and both were delightful to turn with ease.

The Lorch has come up very well indeed and will prove most useful for many years to come; if ever you throw it out make sure I'm there to catch it as it is a delightful precision lathe.

The Oilon was indeed a bargain at Rufforth and I think we both showed remarkable restraint in not stuffing our cars full of materials given the low prices being asked.

I think on our next trip to Rufforth I'll buy the HVLP spray gun we were both so interested in; it is the one with the small cup which is just the right size for spraying a machine or radio cabinet.

It was interesting to receive a safety warning about the 5Ltr of paint stripper you bought for £20; we were informed to be very careful with it as it is much more powerful than Nitromors stripper. Compare the prices but the Nitromors is only 4ltrs;

http://www.restexpress.co.uk/acatalog/Ne...tAodPgRaZg

Many thanks David and Gary for your kind comments regarding my handiwork.

C'mon Joe now there are four of us with lathes to rub it in. Rob (Bushbaby) is the latest to acquire turning facilities so when are you going to buy a lathe? Had you been with me and David at Rufforth we might have twisted your arm to buy the little Unimat that David mentioned in another post.

Nice one David keep up the good work.

Kind regards, Col.

[Yorkie]

Re turning the Oilon, it turns nicely, but as you can imagine, the waste comes off in streamers so you have to keep stopping the lathe or the waste gets tangles up with the chuck. I drilled the 9mm hole through the centre at slow speed in my woodturning lathe a bit at a time so the drill bit didn't get too hot and melt rather than cut the plastic.

Yes, those little HVLP spray guns looked very dinky and nicely made, so hopefully they'll be there next time.

Joe might struggle to find a lathe - Rob's cornered the market for them - he'd have snatched that little Unimat if we'd goaded him on, for sure!

Crikey, the guy who told me Nitromors would be more than double and half the strength wasn't spoofing. The industrial strength stuff I got worked out at £4.00 a Litre - Nitromors is £12.00 a Litre. (They'd drink it neat in the pubs in Hull if they didn't think it was a womans' drink!).

What always amazes me about the Rufforth autojumble is that you see old incomplete motobikes which are just rusting heaps, and basket cases in every sense of the word, then half an hour later, they have 'Sold' stickers on them. It's a great place for buying buffing mops, mop pigtails, buffing compound etc, for such things as alloy polishing. I got my lathe motor from there - little used, and well worth the twenty quid it cost me.

[Radio Fixer]

Im my experience you have to be really careful with paint strippers on radio cabinets. With the needed washing off in white spirit or meth etc they can be very damaging to old veneer. If there are any tiny gaps they get in and you have just made another and possibly worse task.

A maxim of restoration is always start with the weakest solvent first and its good to keep that in the front of the mind. Unless forced to, by someone who has used polyurethane for example, I much prefer to remove old finish with thinners and meduim wire wool. I am close to the action, unlike stripper where you cant see whats going on, and so can adjust as needed. For old 20's to 40's radios the finish comes off surprisingly easy and it helps if you have some anti chill thinners... chuck in about 20 - 30% of this to slow evaporation. I did have to resort to stripper (Nitromoors Varnish not paint) for a radio I decided to do again after 12 years... the modern lacquer took some budging.

Do need to take precautions of course, glooves, mask and being upwind.

Gary

[Yorkie]

Sound advice Gary.

On the few woodies that I've done, I've tried to aviod resorting to Nitromors etc, and have generally used a cabinet scraper as the varnish seems to flake off easily. I'm always very sparing in using sandpaper - usually no coarser than 400 grit as it soon cuts through the thin veneer down to the basewood, especially on corners and rounded tops. I'm not a big fan of wire wool because unless the grain is very closed, it tends to get into the grain. I've taken to using 'U-Pol finishing pads' that are used in the automotive trade for bodywork refinishing and paintwork. The come in various grades, and I use fine and superfine, and I find them excellent. They're rather like Scotch pads used for scouring pans, but much finer. They have the merit that they don't clog (a quick tap of the pad shakes dust free) and they don't leave score marks.

The come in pads of ten or rolls of 35. I get rolls of 35 for £5.00 from Rufforth, which is far cheaper than on internet. EG pack of ten for £13.00:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/U-POL-PACK-10-...0325808977

That's £1.30 each. I can get 70 for a tenner from Rufforth - that's 14.3p each.

Colin's tried them too, and I think he's been quiite impressed.

Drifting off topic again, but we don't get too hung up on such matters in this community, though perhaps it should be nudged to a more approriate section?

[Joe]

I can vouch for the U-Pol pads too.

- Joe

[Retired]

Hi,

For many years I used only abrasive papers for my sanding needs until David very kindly gave me a stack of these U-POL pads.

You certainly converted me David as I'm very impressed with the pads. A while ago I needed to sand down two lathe beds that had received their first coat of gloss enamel and I expected the job to be difficult and take ages. How wrong could I be; I remembered the U-POL pads and as an experiment cut off a 2" square using scissors. Ten minutes later I was applying the second coat of enamel; yes David they are brilliant.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been decorating and have already finished the kitchen and yesterday glossed the woodwork in the hall. I've used these pads throughout and can confirm they do not clog up like abrasive paper and it's amazing just how long a small square from a pad will last. The pads have good bite on gloss paint and quickly knock the gloss off. I too now recommend using U-POL pads and for anyone able to attend Rufforth the pads are dirt cheap; both David and I bought two rolls each and I'll stock up with more if still available on my next trip to Rufforth in June.

It's amazing the range of goods on sale at Rufforth Auto Jumble; as we strolled around I remarked to David that I'd never seen a guitar with such a long neck before; it was an Indian Sitar used for playing classical music. David remarked that one guy must have corned the market on used lawn mowers as his stall was overflowing with them. Entry fee is £4 per person and this together with the cost of fuel can soon be recovered by the many bargains to be had.

We might end up with the whole Golborne gang joining us at Rufforth David if we are not careful.

Kind regards, Col.