Well, the past few days I've spent working on figuring out why the shaft straight knife needed to be shimmed on the knife bar. Saturday I decided to try the long straight knife after I had to sharpen the gouge and roughing knife. I got the gouge and roughing knife nice a sharp and the gouge was making a nice "peel" in the shaving. I did notice that the template was cutting odd so I had to sand down a few high spots. I got the lathe cutting a nice rough stick just a tad larger than the finished diameter. I mounted the tip/taper piece and made a partial cut to check alignment. Then I added the long straight back knife section that will allow the cutting of up to a 17" stick.
The first pass left me in awe. The first three to four inches of the shaft had small rings around the stick and the diameter across the shaft varied all over the place. I scratched my head and figured the "rings" were from some burrs that were on the knife. I made a second turning and it was about the same. I took a glove and cleaned the sawdust of the knife and began inspecting that area very closely. I noticed what looked to be some small bits missing out of the knife edge, almost like a serrated knife.
I pulled the knife off the bar and brought it into better light. I was astounded to see that this brand new knife had flaws in the edge. It looked like when it was sharpened there was trash on the sharpening wheel and it gouged out bits of the edge. I decided to do some honing in that area of knife to clean it up. I was also getting a bulge in the stick at that point too. I worked on it for quite some time both Saturday and Monday. It has gotten better but I feel I need to wait for the large medium "india" stone on back order to arrive.
Today I spent some time overhauling a small kick drum for a client and I also decided to "mic" out the back knife with calipers. The variations in the knife corelated to the variations in the finished stick diameter issues. I found that the "straight" section is indeed not straight and I will have to fix it if I want to cut a "straight" stick. I decided to check the shorter piece and found the similar issues. I am a little bummed that these new knives have these problems. I am happy that I am able to fix them ... It will just take a bit of time and patience.
This is my update for the beginning of the week.
Stick turning is on hold for the moment.
The first pass left me in awe. The first three to four inches of the shaft had small rings around the stick and the diameter across the shaft varied all over the place. I scratched my head and figured the "rings" were from some burrs that were on the knife. I made a second turning and it was about the same. I took a glove and cleaned the sawdust of the knife and began inspecting that area very closely. I noticed what looked to be some small bits missing out of the knife edge, almost like a serrated knife.
I pulled the knife off the bar and brought it into better light. I was astounded to see that this brand new knife had flaws in the edge. It looked like when it was sharpened there was trash on the sharpening wheel and it gouged out bits of the edge. I decided to do some honing in that area of knife to clean it up. I was also getting a bulge in the stick at that point too. I worked on it for quite some time both Saturday and Monday. It has gotten better but I feel I need to wait for the large medium "india" stone on back order to arrive.
Today I spent some time overhauling a small kick drum for a client and I also decided to "mic" out the back knife with calipers. The variations in the knife corelated to the variations in the finished stick diameter issues. I found that the "straight" section is indeed not straight and I will have to fix it if I want to cut a "straight" stick. I decided to check the shorter piece and found the similar issues. I am a little bummed that these new knives have these problems. I am happy that I am able to fix them ... It will just take a bit of time and patience.
This is my update for the beginning of the week.
Stick turning is on hold for the moment.
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