I made a rack to sit on the headstock and hold my chuck keys, allen wrenches, and a few other tools I want to have nearby.
It’s simple: A chunk of scrap wood, with a lip routed out to fit the headstock, and 3 rare-earth magnets to hold it on. Looking at the pictures, it appears I cut out for the headstock and glued on another piece for the top. Whatever works!
The magnets aren’t enough to hold up the weight of the chuck allen keys, but adding the lip over the top of the headstock does the trick.
I drilled holes for the wrenches and things so that the shorter ones are in the middle, and don’t interfere with the spindle handwheel.
I used to use these things to setup my Vari-Grind.
I have now just drilled a 1/8″ hole thru the arm and body at the correct setting(s). If it gets off, I can just re-align the holes with a 1/8″ drill bit (or just visually align the holes).
I needed some inserts for my “new” (1968) 20″ Rockwell bandsaw. I had some squares of Corian countertop material sitting around, and it was just right.
I turned the inserts to the correct size, being careful about the diameter and thickness so they would sit just right in the saw table.
After cutting a slot for the blade, I marked where the slot in the table was, and super-glued a tab there to keep the insert aligned.
The one insert with the round hole is for wet wood, to help the chips clear through the table and (hopefully) get to the dust collector.
I got a new spindle gouge, and discovered that it bumps on the huge “pocket” on the end of the Wolverine arm.
bump
I’ve never really completely liked the huge V-pocket in that arm anyway.
I found a scrap of plastic (I think it’s Delrin, but it really doesn’t matter). I sanded an angle on one end and used a countersink bit to drill a pocket.
Screwed that to the back of the arm with sheet-metal screws.
And now my gouges don’t bump the arm. Also, I think this pocket works much better than the original.
One screw goes thru the tube, and I ground off the other one (the lower one in these photos) so it won’t interfere with the existing pocket. I don’t plan to use that pocket, but I do loan my grinder to the club’s symposium and having the “expected” setup is probably useful for demonstrators.
Wolverine makes that pocket huge like that so you can drop the butt end of a tool handle in there. Same reason the square bar comes so excessively long (I cut about a foot off of mine). All the Wolverine advertisements show skews and roughing gouges being sharpened like that. I think it’s a terrible idea – way too easy to have a gouge dig into the wheel and cause alot of damage (to the operator, the grinder wheel, and the gouge). Also, every time you sharpen, the tool gets shorter, which changes that angle. Just get a platform and make some angle-setting jigs. Much safer and pretty easy.
I made a center finder thing to mark the center of a chucked piece. I often have a bowl or hollow form that has a tenon for my chuck, but no center mark. If I want to reverse mount it, like in a jam chuck or vacuum chuck, it’s really helpful to know where the center is.
This tool fits right down into the spindle threads, and I can tap the knob to mark the center.
I took a scrap piece of wood and carefully turned a cylinder to just match the threads. I then drilled a hole to match some scrap rod I had laying around. I sharpened the rod to a point and epoxied a knob onto the end.
Sometimes my tools get magnitized. Sometimes I’ll used a magnet to hold a chuck key to the headstock. Sometimes it just happens for no apparent reason. But when you don’t want your tool sticking to the tool rest, etc. you need to demagnitize it.
I made a demagnitizer from an old soldering gun. I figured since the soldering tip is basically a short-circuit (a chunk of heavy nichrome wire), the transformer in the gun should be beefy enough to use this way.
I wound up some wire I had sitting around – it looks like 12 gague – and replaced the soldering tip with the coil.
To use it, I stick my magnetized tool through the coil, turn on the gun, and move it up and down the tool a couple times. Then slide it slowly off the end of the tool. The alternating current through the coil randomizes the magnetization of the tool, leaving it neutral. If it still seems magnetized, just repeat the process.
