Ray Hari

[Ray Hari]

Hi, I am Ray Hari from the Silicon Valley Woodturners Inc, CA. I joined SVW in April of 2017. I was elected as the new president of the club last November. I had been doing woodworking as a hobby from 1990 in my garage.But never did any turning until I bought my first lathe and joined SVW. I used to make the Native American flute. I use a router to create the bore for the flute. One day I decided that I would rather use a gun drill on a lathe to bore the flute. That led me to buy a lathe and join the local wood turning club. I consider myself an intermediate level in turning and have a lot to learn.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Welcome to the AAW forum, Ray. Judging by your turningis, you are well beyond the intermediate stage.

 

[hockenbery]

Welcome to the forum.
Congratulations on your presidency.

Nice pieces.

 

[Jim Woods]

Hi Ray, you gave some excellent work there. I am making some NA flutes, using a router to hollow out, but interested in using a gun drill. Where did you get the drill you mentioned for your flutes?

 

[Ray Hari]

Hi Ray, you gave some excellent work there. I am making some NA flutes, using a router to hollow out, but interested in using a gun drill. Where did you get the drill you mentioned for your flutes?

Hi Jim,
Thanks for asking. I bought the lathe to do gun drilling for flutes. Then I joined the club. But ended up getting sucked into turning bowls and other stuff and never finished setting up the lathe for gun drilling flutes. I always think that I will get back to setting up for gun drilling but so far no luck in finding the motivation to get it done. You can find used gun drills on eBay. You will need a long bed lathe and possibly a bed extension and some custom setup with bearings and compressed air etc. So the setup is initially a little time consuming. I have a few friends who may be able to help you. Jon Norris is a Native American flute maker and he does gun drilling for his flutes. You can find him on facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/jontnorris
He is a very helpful guy who will answer all your questions about gun drilling.
Another person is Russ Wolf. You can watch his youtube video on gun drilling.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3H5o2DHloc

I did buy the Harbor Freight long bed lathe for the purpose of gun drilling. May probably have to upgrade the motor to a higher hp one.

Here are some flutes that I made.

~hari~

 

[John Torchick]

You are turning some outstanding items! Welcome and congratulations on your office with SVW.

 

[hockenbery]

Trent Bosch uses a gun drill ( 1/2”??) for depth/pilot holes on his hollow forms.
He has it mounted in a wooden handle with an air connection and shutoff valve.

He bores with it hand held to depth without stopping as the air forces out the chips.
His blanks are 5” diameter.
With flute diameter blanks you need to keep the blank from wobbling like in the video.

 

[Dave Landers]

I’ve made a number of Native American style flutes and mostly have routed them in two half’s because it is way easier to get the slow air chamber routed than to insert a divider into the bore. At least that’s the way I did the one I bored, I think. It has been a number of years.
Also shaping the fipple edge etc is way easier when the flute in in two half’s.
I just bored with a regular bit in an extension, which was good since I ended up only doing one like that.

 

[Ray Hari]

Also shaping the fipple edge etc is way easier when the flute in in two half’s.

Yes, that is true. Initially I used to have trouble getting the proper angle and the gap.Trial and error makes the gap a little wider when you put that knife edge. I do not burn the hole like many others do. Charlie from Bluebear flutes heats up a metal (shaped like an L) and burns that bevel. You can see him make the tool here.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVR62sVlnhA

 

[Jim Woods]

All of my flutes have been 2 half pieces routed and glued. Rough cut the fipple prior to gluing, then burn with a rectangular steel. It makes getting the angle much easier for me. I drill, then burn the tuning holes

 

[Jim Woods]

Ray, I had the same HF lathe until a couple months ago. The 3/4 hp really bugged down when boring larger diameters, and really so with 11 inch bowls. Other than that I really liked it. Now have Craftsman Pro 15". Supposed to have 2hp. Motor does not bug down, but if a bad catch a reduction belt starts losing teeth. Still much more torque.

 

[Ray Hari]

Ray, I had the same HF lathe until a couple months ago. The 3/4 hp really bugged down when boring larger diameters, and really so with 11 inch bowls. Other than that I really liked it. Now have Craftsman Pro 15". Supposed to have 2hp. Motor does not bug down, but if a bad catch a reduction belt starts losing teeth. Still much more torque.

I have that HF lathe and a second Jet 1221vs lathe. The Jet is the one I use 90% of the time. I have more or less permanently put a mini monster hollowing tool on the HF and use it for hollowing. One day I will set it up for gun drilling.