There was some interest a while back about turning pins and since I have re-vamped my set-up a bit since my last tutorial I thought it would be nice to update the OLF.
Here goes...
This is the lathe I use for pins and more precisely turned wood parts. It's a Hardinge 9" swing bench lathe original built for turning metal. It has three speeds and I run it geared up to spin faster for turning wood.
I made this form cutter from HHS for the pin heads. I used a dremel tool with the large cutoff wheel to rough in the shape and finished the cutter with small diamond burrs.
To help with the repetitive aspects of this and other jobs, I made a simple stop that bolts to my lathe bed. The brass fingers are adjustable to set limits for both the longitudinal and cross feeds. The longitudinal stop is removable and in reality I don't use it much.
The major diameter of the pin heads are a tad under 5/16" (I shoot for .310 for a finished head). I start processing blanks by figuring out how many sticks I can rip from a piece using .4 as a minimum staring width for my squares.
My blanks are sized for two pins to each square and I trim them to a minimum of 3.25", remembering that you have to leave some extra length to chuck in the lathe.
Then I kiss each blank on the band saw to make a little X and center drill the blank with a 60 degree center drill.
My home made drive center mounted in a 1/2" collet.
The first blank mounted up and ready to be turned. My tailstock center is just a piece of 1/4" brass stock turned with a 60 deg. center point. Over the weekend I made up a proper live center with the brass center piece pressed into two ball bearings, but the dead center has worked just fine.
I rough in my first blank, stopping to check the diameter often. When I hit the 5/16" mark I stop and set my cross feed stop and continue to rough in the rest of the blanks with very little measuring required.
Now I have a pile of 5/16" sticks ready to cut the heads of the pins. I take them back to the band saw a slice off the last little bit of square end left over from turning.
Now, I switch to a 5/16" collet and put my pin head cutter in the tool post and start cutting heads. Like roughing in the blanks I cut the first head to size and then set my stop so the rest come out the same as the first.
At this stage I have a pile of sticks with a pin head on each end, time to switch set ups one more time for cutting the shanks.
First, I set my cross feed to cut a 3 degree (or 5 if you prefer) taper. Remember that the degree marks on the compound are in reference to one side of your centerline, so for a 3 deg. taper you need to set the compound to 1.5 degrees.
N
From above.
This is my cutter for the shanks.
I put this home made cup center in the tailstock to support the pin head while I cut the shank.
Ready to go!
Again, I work my way down the first pin until the shaft hits .220 just under the collar on the head, then I set my stop and turn away.
I finish the pins off with a light 220 grit sanding and steel wool. Then a little bowling alley wax ad a trip to the buffer.
This one is ready to be cut off and put to use!
With this set up I can make up batches if pins pretty quick and the finished pins turn out very uniform in size. I'll spend a night roughing in a pile of sticks so I'm ready to cut pins if I need any in a hurry! Once I get into the production zone on these things I can get a lot done in a short amount of time.
Enjoy!
Louis
