Another toolholder Q

A

Aurelius

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First off, thank you all for all the great answers to my last question. I think I figured out what I needed. You guys are awesome!
Now on to my next question. I've got a PM 1228 on order that will be here in November and I am going to be working in plastics. A lot of the raw materials come in rectangular stock that I am going to need to turn round before I can work with it. Would a round insert like an RCMT of a RDKW be a good choice for that kind of interrupted rough shaping? If so, would it be better to use a right hand tool like an SRGCR or a neutral on like a SRDCNR? (I'm guessing neutral, if this will even work, but wanted to check)
Thanks
 
Tell us more about what you are making. Even a rough sketch would be helpful. Pictures too if possible.
 
I'm going to be making pens.
The material blanks often come as long rectangular rods, 3/4-1" on a side and anywhere from 5" to 30" long. The first step in turning the pen would be to make the rectangular blank a cylinder and that is what I am asking about. My impression, possibly wrongly, was that the CCxx tool that I will use for shaping would not be the best choice for roughing the rectangles down to cylinder, hence my interest in the round insert tools.
 
With plastic, it really doesn't matter what insert you use, interrupted cut or not. HSS is also a very good choice for plastic.
 
Working with plastics would be more like working with wood than metal. Even for metal, with a metal cutting bandsaw, cutting the corners off of square pieces would seem reasonable. Cutting them to 45* yields a much smaller "interrupted" cut. And for softer plastics, the interrupted cut could be made with a wood gouge. With just the trueing and finish cuts made with a fixed tool.

My wife makes (made) pens. Mostly exotic woods, some few plastics. However, she avoids cured epoxies and acrylics and the like. On the rare occasion she makes metal parts, it's more like "I" make the metal parts and she then polishes them.

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Talk about overkill! You can knock off the corners as Bi11Hudson said or you can use the metal lathe as a wood lathe. Make a tool holder adapter and use wood tools on it. You will only be working 2-3" and metal lathes have been used for years with hand held tools. See Clickspring and watch makers videos. Where you have the advantage is to make your own custom pen blank bushings and hardware. The store bought ones suck with tolerances over .005 which is enough that you can feel it when assembled. Also very soft metal which wears down when sanding. Started making mine out of O1 steel.

My wife will turn anything that can't run away. She turns exotic woods to epoxies and is currently playing with antler. She has been eying brass at websites. so I expect to see she has commandeered my lathe. I made a custom pen blank drilling jig for the drill press. It self centers, is quickly removable and self relocating and can hold blanks up to 3" square witch also handles shaker sets. At some point in the future I will setup a website and sell the plans.
 
It is highly recommended, even for woodworking on a wood lathe, that the corners be knocked off to form an octagonal shape. It is not critical that it be done, but sure makes the gouge easier to manipulate.

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Totaly agree. I use a 12" disk sander.
 
@Bi11Hudson and @Chewy Thanks!
Unfortunately, one of the reasons I am going with a metal lathe vs a wood lathe is that I am dealing with an issue with my hands to the point where I would not feel comfortable being able to use a hand gouge safely. I guess a band saw and/or sander just moved up the priority list.
 
Will you be able to use a skew. round nose or scraper, hand held? Pens are not straight across but involve tapers and valleys. Metal lathes are not suited to that, at least not in any timely fashion. I seem to remember there is a corner rounding jig from somebody. I know there is one for squaring ends to the brass insert tubes. It would not be difficult to make one or get someone here to make one, say, for the 1" belt sander.

I do the rough rounding out on logs for my wife. She gets a little apprehensive on chatter turning burls and crotches.
 
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