Saturday 25 November 2017

"Do you have a solution for a stripped truss rod nut?"

At first no, then the idea of a pin chuck surfaced. A pin chuck is used by pen turners that want to be able to turn a tube without a tailstock. A mandrel that is slightly smaller than the diameter of the tube and long enough to go into the tube and chuck, is used.

A flat spot is filed or ground on the side, the length and diameter  of the pin. ( I used a transfer punch and a finishing nail with the head cut off for my first pin chuck) When it's inserted into the tube the pin goes to one side or the other and jams in place.



A stripped 4mm truss rod nut was found. A one inch piece of .017 guitar string was inserted along one of  the flat sides of a hex wrench. It jammed just like a pin chuck allowing the wrench to both tighten and loosen.



Thursday 26 January 2017

Archtop custom strap pin

My customer has a problem with his handmade archtop. A tailgut is holding the the tailpiece and there's no room for a strap. This was a job for a new addition to the shop, the Taig lathe. Make an endpin with two grooves in it, one for the tailgut and one for a strap. It was straight ahead, ish, the taper on the end pin had to match the taper in the end block. A small tapered reamer was used to clean out the existing hole and provide a reference point. The outer most part of the reamer was marked and measured. Calipers were used to transfer the largest and smallest parts of the taper. After shaping, the peice was cut from the blank and final shaping and polishing were done in the drill press chuck.