Hello Everyone,
A couple of days ago I bought an entire shop worth of tools from the estate
of a fellow who passed away a few years ago. These tools have sat for a few
years and tarnished a little. I was trying to find a quick way to polish up
the front and back rails without doing it by hand.
I settled on using a small lathe with a four jaw chuck, removing the tool
rest/banjo and tail stock. To support the rail (70") I drilled two 1-3/8"
holes in some boards and secured them to a pallet on top of the 25 year old
General 350. I waxed the inside of the holes to reduce friction. I just
happened to have a Flex pipe polisher in stock and had the guys break it out
to make the job even faster. With the lathe set at 450 RPM (slowest speed)
each rail was cleaned up in about 10 minutes. The guys in the back of our
shop were a little leery about my setup, but it worked wonderfully. I will
use this on the next used drill press that shows up with a tarnished/rusty
column.
http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/polishing350rail.jpg
Thanks for looking,
David.
Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.
That's similar to a setup that I used to polish the way tubes on an
antique Shopsmith 10ER. I used a homemade chuck in a VSR drill,
though. It did vibrate and jump around a bit, but it wasn't too
dangerous. At least, the 5' long piece of rotating steel rod didn't
jump up and whack me alongside the head like everybody expected that
it would.
:-)
Bob the Tomato
On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:55:31 -0800, "David F. Eisan"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Hello Everyone,
>
>A couple of days ago I bought an entire shop worth of tools from the estate
>of a fellow who passed away a few years ago. These tools have sat for a few
>years and tarnished a little. I was trying to find a quick way to polish up
>the front and back rails without doing it by hand.
>
>I settled on using a small lathe with a four jaw chuck, removing the tool
>rest/banjo and tail stock. To support the rail (70") I drilled two 1-3/8"
>holes in some boards and secured them to a pallet on top of the 25 year old
>General 350. I waxed the inside of the holes to reduce friction. I just
>happened to have a Flex pipe polisher in stock and had the guys break it out
>to make the job even faster. With the lathe set at 450 RPM (slowest speed)
>each rail was cleaned up in about 10 minutes. The guys in the back of our
>shop were a little leery about my setup, but it worked wonderfully. I will
>use this on the next used drill press that shows up with a tarnished/rusty
>column.
>
>http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/polishing350rail.jpg
>
>Thanks for looking,
>
>David.
>
>Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.
>