Turning rubber?

[John K Jordan]

Not wood, but turned on the wood lathe...

I wanted to make a "rock stop" for my new cello. A rock stop keeps the long metal end pin on the bottom of a cello from sliding on a slick floor.

Cut a 4" circle from a scrap piece of 3/4" rubber stall mat, held with Cole jaws, flattened top and bottom with a scraper, beveled with a spindle gouge, roughed the bottom on a coarse belt sander to provide extra friction.

Had a red plastic plug for some unknown reason, designed to be installed/removed with a 1/2" socket wrench, had coarse threads on the side. Turned a hole in the rubber to fit with a parting tool, screwed the plug into the hole, done. Finish: none.




Thoughts:
- Quick, cheap, and easy to make.
- Livestock stall mats are made from recycled tires, may contain tiny bits of steel and other junk. Saw a few small sparks while turning.
- Rubber from a stall mat stinks when sawn, turned, or sanded.
- It was less fun then turning wood, more fun than turning concrete.

Should work fine until I can get to the stringed instrument store for a "real" rock stop. Then I can retrieve the red plug if I ever remember why I kept it.

JKJ

 

[Tom Gall]

Then I can retrieve the red plug if I ever remember why I kept it.

Isn't that one of those "I might need that someday" items that you've kept for 30-40 years. Don't we all have a "red plug" .....somewhere?

 

[Steve Tiedman]

John, are you sure it wouldn't benefit from 3 coats of pure linseed oil, followed by thinned spar varnish, a couple coats, then 3 coats of Minwax Wiping Poly, followed by a few seal coats of 1# shellac, a spray of catalyzed lacquer, and then a proper Beall wax and buffing?

Just kidding. I've had a couple things on the lathe over time I probably should have stayed away from, but, you'll never know unless you try.

In all seriousness, reading your posts over the past year or so... you never sleep, do you? It seems like you need a 30 hour day and a 10 day week. But, hey, ANYTHING to stay away from a recliner and TV remote control! Keep active, young man!

 

[John K Jordan]

In all seriousness, reading your posts over the past year or so... you never sleep, do you? It seems like you need a 30 hour day and a 10 day week. But, hey, ANYTHING to stay away from a recliner and TV remote control! Keep active, young man!

Hey, I got 4 hours of sleep last night! Got up at 2AM, coffee and yogurt, walked down to the barn to check on things, read the news, worked some puzzles to exercise the brain, and watched a couple of ‘60s episodes of Andy Griffith from a five season DVD collection, then went out for farm chores.

Things on the Andy Griffith shows were pretty much as I remembered from the ‘60s: everyone knew everyone and helped each other, had to talk to a phone operator to call some people, never rode in a car that had seat belts, and half the people smoked and tossed the butts on the ground. (oh, some still do that today!)

I missed all those shows since we didn’t have a TV - someone gave us one and after a few weeks our mother declared it a huge waste of time and threw it out. I entertained myself by reading Shakespeare and the encyclopedia, playing the piano, building a treehouse, and taking apart everything mechanical or electrical I could get.

I wonder what our mother would have thought of the internet…

JKJ

 

[Steve Tiedman]

Your mother was right, and she'd say the same thing about the internet. If I can't get it on aerial signals, I don't need the missing tv in my life. (Andy Griffith is on one of those channels each evening for an hour. Along with Mash, Hogan's Heros... I give them no time.) Cancelled cable 20 years ago. Local PBS a couple times a week for nature and science shows. 10:15pm is when the local weather forecast is shown, by then my eyes are drooping. The internet- this site, BBC or AP for sporadic news, and... that's about it.

Toss the TV, and put a rotary dial phone on the kitchen wall, then I'll be fine.

Nice job with that lump of rubber. I'd suggest a hockey puck for the same purpose.