Renovating a washing mangle

It's on

Ben Clay wrote: snip

You already answered that question. Turning. As in, a lathe. Might want to drill the hole first if you don't have a hollow tailstock. It's a trivial job, you might want to see who the local turners are. %75 is exorbitant unless you are making it from an amazing wood.

Dave in Fairfax

I'd find a friend with a metal lathe, to be sure of getting a true cylinder. I've never done it, but I think you could bore through the headstock. Make two bushings to hold a bit centered in the headstock, hold the bit in a brace, and bore as far as you can, but not more than half way. Turn the piece around and do the same from the other end. By boring from each end, you are at least sure of centering the ends on the rod. If the final size bit won't go through the headstock, just ream in a couple of steps using an electric drill, after the piece is off the lathe.

Just think, they started boring rifle barrels a couple of hundred years ago, with hand power! Wilson

Take a piece of wood big enough to do the job. Bore a hole in it. Push in a mandrel. Mount in lathe and turn to size. Push out mandrel. Easy job. You just haven't found the right guy.

Using a long-borer (ala standard lamps) thru your headtsock or a hollow tail-stock is the way to go. You haven't mentioned what species of timber you want to use, so keep in mind that in many woods the grain will cause significant deviation... I've had up to around 5mm deviation when simply boring a 7mm dia hole through a 5cm pen blank!

I'd suggest drilling a pilot hole to the half-way point and then either reverse the timber or bore from the other end (assuming you have both hollow head AND tail-stock) and then eye-balling it to check that both bores are true to each other. If not, you're better off starting afresh with a new blank, it's a 50/50 skill/luck ratio for this length. Once you have a true bore, then enlarge it with a drill of the final size. If you have intermediate bits I'd suggest working up thru the sizes, giving it the eyeball test after each pass... that seems to reduce the luck factor.

BTW, a centre-point bit is best for the pilot hole, but bits with angled cutting edges (ala HSS metal drills) are better for rebores, as they tend to self-centre in the pilot hole. Old-fashioned auger bits or spade bits are near useless for this type of work..

- Andy

One more thing I shoulda mentioned: take your time and bore _slowly_ only advance the drill a couple of mm at a atime annd pull it back frequently to evacuate the sawdust before advancing again.

Whether you use a pilot hole or take a risk and try to drill it all in one pass, you should be ablt to tell if it's starting to deviate; you should be able to feel the shaft start to vibrate. If the shaft starts trying to turn in your hand with more force than "usual" it's either clogged with dust or deviating too much. Pull back, evacuate the dust and advance the tool back to about 1/2"-1" from where you were. Then advance even more slowly, a min or two, perhaps, to recover that last bit. With luck it'll "side-scrape" the hole and won't simply try to follow the original path. Repeat as necessary until you're sure it's running true again.

Burnt offerings to the wood gods should not be overlooked in this procedure.

Luck!

-Andy