11-18-2015, 06:05 PM
But I did use the lathe to make some nice Christmas presents, and it involves beer. Despite the absence of wood, I knew you would ALL be interested. Here's a little tute:
1) Buy your favorite beer and drink it. Or wine. Haven't tried this with hard liquor, YMMV depending on bottle shape.
2) If necessary, pause to sober up. Safety first!
3) Remove any paper labels. Goo-Gone is good for this.
4) Cut the bottle and remove the top. I used one called the Kinkajou, worked pretty slick. There are lots of videos on the internet that demonstrate how to do this, so I won't go into detail. Now you've figured out that we are making water or juice glasses. Beer bottles make juice glasses, wine bottles for water glasses.
5)Now comes the part where the lathe comes into play. I used it to sand and polish the glass rims. I used a 4" diamond lapping plate to sand the top flat and round the outside edge, 240 and 500 grit. Since it was a wet sanding system, I rigged up a shroud from a water bottle and attached it to the lathe headstock with rare earth magnets.
Here's a bunch after sanding the rim flat and rounding the outside edge.
Sanding the inside edge with 120 grit little drum sander. I wore gloves, dust mask and face mask on every operation. Didn't want to be wearing glass in case of a catch.
Finally, polishing the rim with a buff and buffing compound. I also did one with a wire wheel on a grinder, but that didn't seem very safe.
And the end result.
1) Buy your favorite beer and drink it. Or wine. Haven't tried this with hard liquor, YMMV depending on bottle shape.
2) If necessary, pause to sober up. Safety first!
3) Remove any paper labels. Goo-Gone is good for this.
4) Cut the bottle and remove the top. I used one called the Kinkajou, worked pretty slick. There are lots of videos on the internet that demonstrate how to do this, so I won't go into detail. Now you've figured out that we are making water or juice glasses. Beer bottles make juice glasses, wine bottles for water glasses.
5)Now comes the part where the lathe comes into play. I used it to sand and polish the glass rims. I used a 4" diamond lapping plate to sand the top flat and round the outside edge, 240 and 500 grit. Since it was a wet sanding system, I rigged up a shroud from a water bottle and attached it to the lathe headstock with rare earth magnets.
Here's a bunch after sanding the rim flat and rounding the outside edge.
Sanding the inside edge with 120 grit little drum sander. I wore gloves, dust mask and face mask on every operation. Didn't want to be wearing glass in case of a catch.
Finally, polishing the rim with a buff and buffing compound. I also did one with a wire wheel on a grinder, but that didn't seem very safe.
And the end result.
True power makes no noise - Albert Schweitzer. It's obvious he was referring to hand tools
