Max Taylor
In Memoriam
I am needing plans for a bowl steady made of bb plywood. I have a PM3520b that has a 10 in. swing or 20 in. blank. Any help out there? Thanky, Max
I just hinted at how nice it would be to see a Oneway steady with appropriate block under the tree. New lathe, new block. Spindle steady fits the same base. That was fathers' day.
Odie, you mention some modifications to your Oneway Bowl Steady, that made performance better. Could you share your modifications with us, and what improvement they made?
I have the Oneway Bowl Steady, and have already gone through a set of wheels trying to find the fine line between not enough support and too much (i.e., leaving long rubber skid marks on the bowl exterior).
Donna,
Check this link that Odie left in the How To forum:
http://www.aawforum.org/vbforum/showthread.php?t=3714
KurtB
Can you describe what happens when the wheels are not running in the same line?
Boehme, not sure if you were directing your question to KurtB or Odie. But the wheels on my bowl steady had very uneven wear --and I mean REALLY uneven wear, so that if one wheel was touching, the other wheel was more than a 1/4 inch away from the piece.
Like I said, it took a few times to figure out how much pressure to put on the scissors in the beginning, and those first few times likely took out much of that rubber; since that goof, I could never get the wheels to do the job they were supposed to.
I'll pick up a new set of wheels at a skate/ride shop, and a longer set of bolts/washers and try the fix when I'm turning bowls again.
boehme.....
I haven't been on for a few days and I see this question was left hanging......sorry bout that!
Often times there is a single track on a bowl where the wheels will run well. In order to hit that right, the two wheels need to be running true to one another. Ultimately, it depends on the shape of your bowl as to where the best tracking will be.....some shapes are more usable in this respect.
If one wheel is off of that best track, I noticed it had a tendency to rub away the wheel rubber.
The more slanted the walls of the bowl, the more this tends to be so. Ideally, we would be turning cylinders for the wheels to not be affected negatively......but, what fun would that be?
otis of cologne
Donna.......
Be sure to let us know how the skate wheels work out for you. I'm thinking the regular skate wheels have stiffer rubber than those supplied with the OW bowl steady.
I'm sure the original wheels will be available from Oneway manufacturing......I should probably get a spare set, although my wheels still have a lot of life left on them.
otis of cologne
Obviously new wheels are the best, but I have a stack of various composition wheels, all gathered, for a couple of dollars, at the Salvation Army Store or Goodwill Boutique. I buy the inline skates and remove the wheels. You would be amazed at how often those skates look nearly unused. I don't have a OW steady but rather a home built for my hollow forms.
Thanks Otis. If I understand what you are saying is that any scuffing caused by the wheels not tracking perfectly true is going to accelerate wear and the job of getting both of them tracking true is much more difficult, if not sometimes impossible, if they are not both running in the same plane.
Thanks Jake.......
That's good to know. I sometimes go to the local Goodwill, and the next time I do, I'll be sure to look for some inline skates.
Although the original OW wheels seem to be pretty soft, I can only guess as to how well a harder wheel would work. Your suggestion gives me the option to find out......and it would be pretty cheap to experiment.
otis of cologne
Odie, some skates have black, hard rubber wheels, I don't buy them, as they tend to crush the wood fibers. They leave marks that have to be turned out, I was not able to sand them out. The gray and clear plastic wheels work fine as long as you only put enough pressure on the steady to add support but not enough to mark the piece you are turning. You could plan ahead also, especially for softer woods, and leave a little excess material at the contact point.
As I was watching the warping happen before my eyes, the thought occurred to me that a spring tensioner, between the wheels and bowl, could be devised so that a slight amount of warping will not cause the wheels to lose contact with the bowl.
Anyone else thought about this???????
otis of cologne
That thought also crossed my mind. However, there are problems with applying spring tension that may well make the situation worse. When a spring is added to a movable system that contains mass, the system becomes tuned ... meaning that it will have a resonance at some frequency that will, in certain combinations of speed, diameter of the turning, and particular shape of the out-of-round turning will wind up beating itself to death. Adding viscous damping to the spring (i.e., a shock absorber) could help, but every time that conditions changed, a different viscous damper would be needed to prevent the spring loaded arm from "floating".
I think that it is mostly a fruitless effort to have a steady rest on a badly out-of-round turning. A better plan would be to plan a progressive turning approach working from the rim to the center of a turning and never go back to touch up out-of-roundness once the desired wall thickness has been reached.
I know that there are situations where a steady rest is essential, but I have not personally encountered any great need for one. I sometimes will lightly rub a couple fingers on the wall of the turning to dampen vibrations. I have found little leather pads that are designed for carvers that works well for this.
Bill
Shock absorbers.......what a concept! It would be interesting to see if it worked......or my spring idea, for that matter. We could both theorize about these things, but without practical application, they remain just untested concepts.
Odie, when I'm hollowing a large bowl, I spray the outside of the bowl with a mixture of soap and water... about 4 water/1 soap... and keep it damp until I'm almost finished hollowing it, I mean just finishing up the inside bottom.
It doesn't warp until I'm finished.
I do use my homemade bowl steady on most of the bowls I turn.
Also, when I notice a wheel getting a little bit of a flat on the center of the tread, I hold it against my belt sander at an oblique angle, and at a slant, and let it roll the flat away. It works well.
I had always thought the bowl was warping from lack of all the "supporting wood" that's being removed.......
When you remove wood, whatever stresses it was putting on the wood that's left.....isn't there anymore!