Re: Help, please? Need blunt "points" on dowels

[Larry Jaques]

On 14 Sep 2003 06:31:44 -0700, [e-mail] (David Hakala) pixelated:

I am building rubberband Gatling guns to sell on eBay. The eight >barrels are 1/2" wooden dowels. The rear end of each barrel has a >V-shape - not conical, just two parallel planes that taper the end. >The point of the V is rounded over to avoid sharp edges that might cut >a rubberband. > >Right now I'm making two cuts on the bandsaw and rounding the point on >the belt sander. I would like to make one pass that would do it all. > >Anyone know where I can get a grinding wheel with a V-shaped groove in >it, or another method of reducing production time?

How about a 1/2" roundover router bit? (And a LOT of balls to hold a short dowel into it while turning.)

Either make a safe router jig or find some retiree who wants some busy-work and will charge just peanuts.

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[Sweet Sawdust]

[Silvan]

I'm envisioning a gizmo with a router mounted on a rail, bit down, and dowels are inserted into a board with a lot of evenly spaced holes in a line. Pass the router across the top and presto magnifico make a lot of pointy roundy dowel thingies.

[David Hakala]

Oh, yeah! I did get a router a couple weeks ago. D'oh! Thanks, everyone!

Nah, I got a 13 year-old son who'll do it for less - or else. ;-) Actually, we're equal partners in this little venture.

[RM MS]

Use a Carborundum "Tool Room Stick" and shape the grinding wheel into any profile you want. But I think the wheel will get gummed up on wood in a short time.

[Silvan]

I'm glad somebody finally appreciates the power of improvisational engineering. :)

That's a good point, actually. We said V bit, which cuts like

|\ /| ||\ /|| |||||||

What I was actually envisioning when I thought of the aforementioned jig was a bit with the exact opposite provile of that. It would leave a nice little point.

Now that I think about it, a bit like that wouldn't be very useful for anything other than making pointy dowels, and therefore, I'll bet nobody makes one.

You could grind and file something to work maybe, but you'd be taking your life into your hands to spin some shop made gizmo at 25,000 RPMs.

So that *does* present a difficulty.

I guess the thing to do then would be a two tiered jig...

Dowel goes into the bottom, and centered above it is a suitable guide hole for the router. Run the router around the hole, and cut all the way around the dowel in the process. Build the jig with eight slots, so you can do a whole batch without having to turn the router off.

Or, IIRC the OP Only needed to taper off two parallel sides of a dowel, in which case having a sliding rail thingie as originally put forward could work, if it had two guide channels for the router.

Where there's a will, there's a way to rigimicate something, dammit!

[David Hakala]

I'm not looking for a conical point, but a V-shaped "chisel" end. The vertical planes of the V are parallel. The vertex of the V needs to be blunted to avoid the possibility of cutting the rubber bands.

I've been using the bandsaw and a jig made of U-shaped aluminum channel. Clamp the dowel in the channel with a thumbscrew. Run the tip through the sawblade at about a 42-degree angle, using a fence to start the cut just to one side of the tip's center. Then flip the jig and dowel over and do it again, getting the cuts parallel. This produces acceptable results pretty fast, but I'm still making two cuts per dowel and doing one dowel at a time. The router jig idea would let me cut eight dowels in just one pass. I like it!

[David Hakala]

Oh, no! Tony and I split the work and the profits. We spent 3-4 hours making guns last Sunday, and Tony collected $35. That fulfilled his hair dye ambition, which I've been hearing about for nearly a year. He has hazel eyes so black hair looks as good as his natural blonde. But I doubt that he will spend another $50 of his *own* money to repeat that two-hour ordeal!

See, it's often easier to let 'em try something once than to say "no" five times/week for several years. ;-)

David Hakala Denver, CO

[Leuf]

If the router idea doesn't pan out, why can't you do multiple dowels on the bandsaw? Drill holes in a line in a piece of wood with a drill press, then cut down the centerline of the holes on the bandsaw, giving you two pieces with a line of half holes. The material removed by the blade should give enough clamping pressure to hold the dowels with a couple bolts/wingnuts - just make sure they are higher than the fence or countersunk. Also it might be faster to use two fences at opposite angles than flipping it over. Just stop them short of the blade so that they don't interfere with each other, and mount them to an auxilliary table so they only have to be setup once.

-Leuf

[Silvan]

Well, that's the thing with the kind of labor my little slaves have to do. There *aren't* any profits. :)

They're usually pretty eager to have the opportunity to help though. They

*loved* painting. I loved having them help me paint. I'm not one to sit back and drink beer while the kids sweat their little butts off, mind you.

Black hair. Well, the hair by itself isn't so bad. Depends on whether it comes with 14 pounds of steel sticking out of his face.

I know those goth kids do that stuff just to offend people like me, so I try not to be offended, but at the same time I hope fashion moves on before my two become teenagers. We used to wear suspenders hanging around our knees and pink shirts. It just seems so much more benign than the things kids do today in order to freak out adults.

I'll remember that.

[David Hakala]

:-) That's before they hit puberty and discover the price of skateboards. Tony begged me to let him scrub the toilet when he was three. He really got off on cleaning, for some reason. Now he wants to be paid for getting up in the morning.

Oh, no... nothing permanently scarring until he has his own home. And I told him I'd fire him if he ever again came home with Magic Marker heavy-metal "tattoos" all over his arm. He was surprised to learn that employers can do that just because they don't like the way one looks. I dunno what they teach him in school but that lesson seems more important than Aztec marriage rituals.

I don't know all the reasons they do it, but I don't think shock value is the main reason. Rebellion against the stifling conformity taught in public school is a major factor. When my high school mandated neckties, we kids held a competition to wear the ugliest one possible. I won with a 75/25 blend of pink polyester and blue aluminum mesh. Then the Powers That Be decreed, "hair must not touch the ears," so I shaved my head and painted a scarlet A on my pate with mercurochrome. :-) My kid fiercely defends his individuality (for which trait I credit/blame myself), so he goes for distinction in everything.

Eye doctor: "Tony, do you have any questions about your first contact lenses?"

Tony: "Do they come in colors?"

Dad: "What color do you want?" Just playing along out of curiosity. ;-)

Tony: "Brown and blue?"

Dad: "You plan to alternate colors daily?"

Tony: "No. I want one brown eye and one blue eye." Like Marilyn Manson, not David Bowie.

It will, and you will regret it. Teenagers have been aggravating their parents with clothing since zoot suits, which were the 1940s equivalent of "sagging pants."

Dave Hakala

[Silvan]

Yeah, I can imagine. I'm sort of dreading those days, because right now both of my kids are really eager to help for free. :)

I wonder what all these kids are going to do when they have to get jobs. Especially the ones with tattooed black things on their faces and such.

Oh, sure it is. They love it when I'm repulsed by their appearance. I can see it in their eyes, under all the metal things. :)

Ah, well, as long as he's not trying to look like David Bowie.

Maybe zoot suits will replace goth. That would be OK by me.

Truthfully, I can't imagine how it could get much worse, unless it becomes fashionable for kids to cut off their ears or something.

[David Hakala]

I hear the bleeding edge of fashion these days is to split one's tongue like a snake's.

And "Tiger Man" here reminds me how blessed I am to have a normally weird teenager:

Hakala

[Silvan]

Gack. Probably started by somebody who accidentally ripped out one of those stupid tongue rings. :)