Robust Lathe Review - More Woodturning

Turning a Flag Staff for a BoatThe project for this article is shown above. The piece on top is the part needing replacement. The pieceon the bottom is the finished project. The boat owner, my friend’s son, didn’t want us to put on anyfinish. He preferred to use the finish that he uses on his boat to properly protect it from the water.by Fred HolderShortly before Christmas, afriend of mine was diagnosed withcancer in his hip bone and was toldnot to walk or stand. His son hadjust sent the flag staff from his boat,which needed repairing or replacing.Now, he couldn’t do the job. Heasked if I could give him a hand.I said, sure I would be glad to doit for him. So I drove over to pickup the piece that needed replacing.It turned out to be 25 inches longand about two inches at the largestpoint.I had a 3 inch thick mapleplank that has been kicking aroundin my shop for a dozen years. Thislooked like good stock to makethis piece, so I sawed out a squarepiece about 2.5 inches square and25 inches long. Mounted it onto thelathe between centers and turned atenon on each end to fit my chuck.Actually on the larger end, whichhad a cap fit over it, I sized it to fitthe cap and then it would also fit inthe chuck. At this point, I realizedit might make a decent story for themagazine and brought my camerato the shop and enlisted Mildred’shelp to take the photos.Since this piece had to have ahole drilled the complete length forwire to the light on the top of thePage 30 More Woodturning February 2010Figure 1. The wood is mounted between the chuck and the livecenter with my steady rest mounted and set to the rearmost recessturned to fit the rollers on the steady.staff, I was going to have to use asteady rest to support the tailstockend while drilling. I also don’t trustdrills to drill perfectly true for 25inches. Therefore, it was best todrill half way from each end. So,while the piece was mounted in thechuck at the headstock end and on alive center at the tailstock, I turnedround recesses in the square stockan equal distance from each end.I did it this way so that the steadyrest could be mounted onto the latheand locked down into place andnot require moving when the stockwas switched end for end to drillthe second half section of the hole.Figure 1 shows the set up ready tostart drilling.Each end had a larger holedrilled for an inch or so in depth.One end was ¾” and the other endwas 5/8”. These holes were drilled