Spiral woodwork

This is my first Instructable. Hope you will follow clearly. It will show you a step by step how to make a spiral out of a solid round piece of wood. Tools needed: Drill press, Table Saw, 10mm wood/steal drill bit,elbow grease, small round file, more elbow grease, sand paper, more elbow grease. Enjoy! by.....AntonD

Step 1: Make a V-Block

To make a spiral, you need to work very precise. Start off by making a V-Block big enough for a 40mm diameter round piece to fit comfortably. See pic. This is where the table saw came in handy. The shape does not have to look like mine. As long as theres a big V-groove in it as to hold the round piece tight.

Comments

[mortonwoodworking]

Well the drilling part took me more along the lines of 3-4 hours and same goes with the cutting/sanding part. I didn't even record all of it because my little point-n-shoot camera would turn itself off after so long of recording. So I just used chunks of each basic step and then sped it up. I'm glad you like it though and I made sure to give you credit in the description on youtube since I never would have thought to try this if I hadn't seen your instructables.

-Lesley

[voetspore]

Nice work and thanks for the credit.... keep me posted.
Regards
Anton

[voetspore]

Nice work and thanks for the credit.... keep me posted.
Regards
Anton

[mortonwoodworking]

Hey check out this video I made when I attempted this again! Its pretty rough but I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

http://youtu.be/mtrAWvbi_ik

[voetspore]

Wow, I love the Video. How long was the video before converted to Fast speed?
Regards
Anton (Voetspore)

[mortonwoodworking]

It was a tiny bit confusing but i got it the first try! super awesome idea!

[voetspore]

Wow, I'm glad you got it right.... thanks very much for the feedback. Yours is looking very good!!

[sawtooth1953]

I just found this Instructable and I am interested in the technique used to make the spirals... it's been a year and a half since you submitted this... do you have any pictures to add to fill in the gaps between Step 5: Drilling and Step 6: Sanding? Anybody?

Thanks for submitting it... it has piqued my interest.

Spence

[voetspore]

Hi Sawtooth. Unfortunately, at the time I made this, I did not do it for an Instructable. I have no more detailed pictures. All I can tell you is " Do it.." You will see. No extra detail is needed. I'ts like magic.

[atomicturkey27]

just got a wood lathe and am able to make cylinders. I plan to try this soon. BTW excellent work!

[tcase]

We had these machines where I used to work ( fluters ), when you used a router, and moved it from left to right, it would do this same affect, but with smaller cut in the would. the router frame was hooked to a chain, and when you move the router, it would use gears to turn the wood like it was on a lathe, but at a very slow speed. I hope to build one myself because I moved to wyoming, and that company was back in ohio. We built stair parts. My brother still works there... Maybe if I do build one, I can make it into an instructable, but it was to do all sorts of fluting ordeals on a lathe platform. Im going to ask my brother to take a picture and send it to me... this way I can recreate it... might not be until spring or summer though... this is a nice piece of work, and I agree,,, this was the hard way, but when you dont have the proper tools, you do what you can with what you have...lol

[Phil B]

Sears Craftsman once marketed a fixture for a router. There was a set of centers for the round piece. The router rode over it on a track. A crank with a cable simultaneously turned the round and moved the router down the track to make a spiral. I never had one, but remember seeing them. I knew someone who had one and saw some of his projects. The fixture took some of the effort out of the task. Congratulations on doing it well the hard way.

[skylane]

Phil, That was the "Router Crafter" I still have one in the garage. Mike

[pfred2]

I have one mint in box and have never tried to use it. Just one of those things.

[yoshhash]

Would you be willing to sell it? I even had the Sears catalogue and have been lamenting the discontinuation for many years. I'm serious- please get back to me.

[CementTruck]

http://www.timbecon.com.au/details/router-lathe-8715.aspx still make and sell similar products. You just have to want to shell out the $$$$.

This is Instructables - Look at the pictures, do a little research, find a couple of old bicycle frames, some chewing gum, a wad of belly button lint and make the tool yourself! : )

Cheers!!!

[stringstretcher]

bent coathanger... silver tape...

[pfred2]

I've chopped up a few bicycles and the tubes you get are pretty short. None over 2 feet really. Nice stock though if it is chrome moly. Might be better to use black iron pipe as a frame. That you can get in 10 foot lengths!<br/><br/>Also, I'm not too familiar with mine, being as I've never had it out of the box that I can recall, but I sort of remember that there may be some gears involved with the contraption. They'd be difficult to source.<br/><br/>Today one might be better off to CNC it all. Then you could get some wild shapes. These Router Crafter gadgets are pre-PC items.<br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://linuxcnc.org/">http://linuxcnc.org/</a><br/>

[pfred2]

It isn't the only thing I have that mostly collects dust. I'm going to hang onto it on the off chance that I actually do use it someday. Right after I complete that ship in a bottle I've been planning on building.

[ninjaknow]

do you think i could use a regular drill

[voetspore]

I've tried a normal drill once. If you mean without a drill stand. No, do not even attempt. The reason is that your drilling has to be very accurate.

[_soapy_]

Amazing! A terribly long winded way to do it, but if you've got the time and the power tools, then there is no other way without a CNC wood lathe. And still far faster than messing around trying to use a chisel.

[Weissensteinburg]

That's awesome! I wish I had the patience to do this sort of thing. How long did it take you to complete?

[voetspore]

Just do it. It's only a few hours. 5-6 hours max.

[pineapplenewton]

This reminds me of a project kids used to do in the wood shop at my middle school where they would make a carve wooden chain out of one piece of wood

[kelseymh]

Very understandable; congratulations! It's too bad you weren't able to take more pictures along the way of drilling (it would be very interesting to see the spiral appear). Rated and featured.

[voetspore]

Thanks, may I ask here what rated and featured means? I'm completely new to this.

[kelseymh]

If you look at this I'ble, you'll see off to the right a box labelled INFO. The row of stars there is (for everyone but you :-) an actively little JavaScript thing that allows users to assing a rating from 0-5 to your I'ble. The number you see is a weighted running average of all those ratings so far.

"Featured" refers to that nice little banner you see in the corner of the icon for your I'ble. It also means your I'ble is displayed on the home page for a little while (until 19 more get featured after you ;-).

[voetspore]

Ahh, thanks for the quick reply. 926 views in a couple of hours. I'm impressed. Bedtime now. 23:15 here in SA

[jeff-o]

Yeah, some pictures and instructions between this step and the previous one would be appreciated!

[voetspore]

As I said, all you do is drill along both sides of the tape. The holes about one millimeter apart. Just do it, you will see it works out. Unfortunately, I have no more pics of work in progress. Once again. Drill carefully and SLOW.

[jeff-o]

SO that's all there is to it, eh? Cool. I suppose that a Forstner bit would probably work even better...

[CapnChkn]

I like yours as well. I've never tried to carve spirals, but here are video parts one and two with Roy Underhill carving twists in his table legs!

http://flash.unctv.org/woodwrightss/wws_2602.html
http://flash.unctv.org/woodwrightss/wws_2603.html

[rimar2000]

Beautiful work!! I always wonder how they did those things.

[voetspore]

Is my Instructable at least an Understandable?

[rimar2000]

Yes for me (but I am very smart!) ;)

[seolfor]

Your way is a lot easier than I was taught almost 20 years ago in a wood working class. Good job!