nova ornamental turner

[Bill Alston]

These are some of my tools. The top one is a commercial router cutter, the other two shop made.



For work on the end. One fixed, one adjustable.



Mounted cutter with safety shield removed for clarity.

 

[Bill Alston]

It’s been suggested that some lathes don’t run fast enough to give a clean cut. Obviously depends on the model of lathe.

Conversely, some routers (if it’s done this way) run a bit too fast. You can get machines with what I believe to be an ideal (adjustable) speed range but they aren’t cheap. I was lucky enough to be able to slow down the lowest speed on my router by adjusting the potentiometer inside. It doesn’t appear to have affected the highest speed which is handy.

If you have, or can get access to a metal lathe the tools are easy enough to make using small pieces of HSS for the cutters.

 

[RichColvin]

I looked at these type of things a couple of years back. I ended up cobbling this together.

View attachment 76212

It’s a small standard X Y Table from eBay for which I machined a custom Router mount. I reduced the speed on the router and I’ve made some of my own cutters using small HSS tool bits.

The overall setup obviously moves the cutter from the lathe headstock to the router and the workpiece to the headstock compared to that in the original post above. The setup worked well in tests but I’ve not got round to using it yet apart from that. These type of things work best with dense timbers which aren’t always easy to source at a good price.

What prompted you to add the plexiglass screen, and what has been your experience with it so far?

 

[Bill Alston]

I made the Polycarbonate screen for safety reasons. It would not be difficult to inadvertently touch any moving parts. Also, should a cutter come lose …

The setup works very well. I did contemplate copying the JaHo but I had concerns with the use of a rotary table. Whilst an RT offers greater flexibility with the number of divisions available I just didn’t think it necessary. I believed, and still do that an indexing plate offered a much simpler, easier and cheaper solution. It’s also very easy to pre mark the plate to avoid making indexing mistakes. This is mine, it looks messy but is easy to use. Once you’ve chosen the spacing it’s just a matter of dropping the detent pin in the relevant coloured hole.



The biggest issue for me has been sourcing dense timbers to get nice crisp cuts. Boxwood and African Blackwood are expensive over here. I have been meaning to experiment using wood hardener on other timbers but I’ve not got round to it yet.

 

[Bill Alston]

I watched the video of the JaHo in action several times. There was a lot of twiddling dials for the position and depth of cut.
I wanted something easier and more repeatable. An indexing plate solved one issue and a depth stop added to the table dealt with the other. Circled in red here.

 

[Bob Roehrig]

Open question to all that are either using a Nova Ornamental turner or the JaHo adaption such as I am currently finishing up. Everything is now complete on my unit and I now need cutting tools. My boring bar takes a 5/16" diameter rod and since I can't seem to find any premade it's off to the grinder I go. I currently for years have been using my MDF unit and that has a fly cutter. I'm now learning that when I grind my cutter, upon finishing, the point of the cutter must be on center. Since I'm sharpening by hand I find this a little difficult to do an exact job. I'm looking for some tips or pointers on how to achieve a better and more accurate grind in order to keep the tolerances where they should be. Thanks in advance.......... Any and all ideas are very much welcomed.

 

[Bob Roehrig]

I made the Polycarbonate screen for safety reasons. It would not be difficult to inadvertently touch any moving parts. Also, should a cutter come lose …

The setup works very well. I did contemplate copying the JaHo but I had concerns with the use of a rotary table. Whilst an RT offers greater flexibility with the number of divisions available I just didn’t think it necessary. I believed, and still do that an indexing plate offered a much simpler, easier and cheaper solution. It’s also very easy to pre mark the plate to avoid making indexing mistakes. This is mine, it looks messy but is easy to use. Once you’ve chosen the spacing it’s just a matter of dropping the detent pin in the relevant coloured hole.

View attachment 82066

The biggest issue for me has been sourcing dense timbers to get nice crisp cuts. Boxwood and African Blackwood are expensive over here. I have been meaning to experiment using wood hardener on other timbers but I’ve not got round to it yet.

Good point here Bill. I invested in the Rotary Table only because everyone said I needed to keep track of the indexing, but then again, that's what an "index" plate is suppose to do. Much easier on the eyes rather than constantly setting and changing micrometer dial reading as found on the Roatary Tables. I'm not sure what the color codes are for on your wheel, but your idea is definitely worth some consideration. Please let me know how this works out in the long run. Attaching below my table that I go by to set my Rotary Table to the correnct number of spaces. Assume your index plate works the same???

 

[Bill Alston]

The coloured marks are just to keep track of what holes I’m using for a given pattern.
I already had the Indexing plate so it made sense to use it.

 

[RichColvin]

Open question to all that are either using a Nova Ornamental turner or the JaHo adaption such as I am currently finishing up. Everything is now complete on my unit and I now need cutting tools. My boring bar takes a 5/16" diameter rod and since I can't seem to find any premade it's off to the grinder I go. I currently for years have been using my MDF unit and that has a fly cutter. I'm now learning that when I grind my cutter, upon finishing, the point of the cutter must be on center. Since I'm sharpening by hand I find this a little difficult to do an exact job. I'm looking for some tips or pointers on how to achieve a better and more accurate grind in order to keep the tolerances where they should be. Thanks in advance.......... Any and all ideas are very much welcomed.

I don’t use either machine, but I do use rod style fly cutters with my rose engine. I documented the sharpening process I use on the Sharpening Handbook (https://sharpeninghandbook.info/WW-RoseEngineFlyCutter-Rod.html).

You can also look at Alibaba / AliExpress to buy them pre-sharpened. They are often listed as engraving bits. The last ones I purchased are these which have 6mm shafts.

Buy Products Online from China Wholesalers at Aliexpress.com

The ones I purchased are quite good quality and very sharp.

A 5/16” shaft is 7.94 mm, so 8 mm shafts may work as the difference is 0.00246” (though I’m not sure).

I like that it is easy to find differing cutting edge angles, from 30° up to 120°, though the delivery is a couple of weeks.

 

[Bill Alston]

As a hobby machinist as well as a wood turner, it’s quite handy to be able to accurately sharpen cutting tools.
Specialist equipment can be very expensive though so I cobbled this together from a cheap (£30) 6” grinder and a shop made platform. I can mount a variety of different 4” diamond discs to it. I’ve also a growing list of jigs for holding different tools.

You could use almost any grinder. The important part is a fully adjustable rest, plus shop made jigs.