Are butts constructed using a-joints more prone to warping?
- Thread starter Snooker Theory
- Start date
Why is that ?
Shafts need supports at their 2 end to achieve the best precision when you face joints and if you make it with 2 chucks you put a stress pressure in the shaft.
Brand new 3 jaws chuck have tolerance run out of .002 to .003.
When you want precision with chuck, tight a piece in the chuck and turn it to make a center or drill and finish it with boring bar to make a collar, like this you are at .00000.
Before the last cuts, slip 2 sleeve at ends with little pressure and take little cut on them between centers and install the steady rest.
When the joint is intalled tight a blank cap in the joint and turn the 60 degrees center hole right in the steady rest, make that at each end and your job is perfect.
Brand new 3 jaws chuck have tolerance run out of .002 to .003.
When you want precision with chuck, tight a piece in the chuck and turn it to make a center or drill and finish it with boring bar to make a collar, like this you are at .00000.
Before the last cuts, slip 2 sleeve at ends with little pressure and take little cut on them between centers and install the steady rest.
When the joint is intalled tight a blank cap in the joint and turn the 60 degrees center hole right in the steady rest, make that at each end and your job is perfect.
Probably because they don't know any other way?
I've never used a steady rest for anything cue related and seem to have everything work out just fine.
I'm sure your way may work just fine for you also.
No such animal
I just explained the most accurate way, your job can be fined in chucks but really not the most accurate.
The first thing you learn at school is that chucks are not perfectly accurate.
If anyone has a pic to share of their a-joint setup, I'd sincerely like to learn more about how different cue makers tackle this construction technique.
If me asking is in bad taste, my appologies, not trying to get spoon fed the techniques you guys have likely took years perfecting, just trying to better understand the process.
If me asking is in bad taste, my appologies, not trying to get spoon fed the techniques you guys have likely took years perfecting, just trying to better understand the process.
That's what the REAR chuck is for .
Well, some have 6-jaw set true chucks.
Well, technically you wouldn't NEED the steady rest if you are set-up BETWEEN CENTERS. You just need a lathe dog at the front and live center at the rear.
You want the cleanest cuts ? Use live tooling. Router/spindle and bottom cutting mill. Slow power feed with live mill. It cannot get cleaner.
But, drilling, boring and threading are better using the chuck.
What lathe do you have ?
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I'm not a cues maker I'm a machinist and be sure that the most accurate method to make and face a joint is with a steady rest, but I understand that pool cues are not match rifle barrels.
I can't tell how many arguments have gone on at this place between machinists and people who build cues for a living on how things are supposed be done and what works and what doesn't work.
We appreciate your insight but I have never used a steady rest in over 20 years of my cue building and will gamble I can attach a forearm to a handle just as accurate as you can using a steady rest.
I've cut finished cues in half and reassembled and wrapped them without having to refinish the cue and you couldn't tell it has a new underwrap installed.
It's not rocket science.
My comments was not for obstinations, everybody take his own method, pool cue don't require top precision, but don't speak too much about what you don't know, you can't be as accurate in chuck than in steady rest, simply impossible but it's not important that you don't understand that or why.
How much runout is good enough for you?
With accurate collets and a set-tru six jaw chuck, I can dial in to where you can't see the needle move with my Tesa 0.01mm test indicator, if that's not good enough for you it's possible to tighten things up further, I have a Tesa 0.002mm indicator. I fail to see what advantage a steady rest setup have over my setup?
Forget it, I understand like i said, that pool cue is not a target rifle barrel.
Just a question, do you think that you can put a round steel shaft at zero in all direction with a 4 independent jaws chuck with any dial indicator better than if you simply tight this shaft in a 3 jaws and take a cut on, the answer is no, it's just fundamental principle, a lot of gunsmiths chamber barrels directly in 4 jaws and they are wrong.
I've made most of my career as a wood butcher, but i'm a decent machinist, too.
You are overlooking a few things.
If you are drilling a steel shaft and if it is round, you can put it directly in the bronze jaws of a steady rest with nil clearance and a little oil, moly, or your personal elixir, and work the end - driil, bore, face, crown very accurately.
Now try that with wood?
Put roller tips on, you already lost your accuracy.
Put it in a cat head to use the steady, why not just use a 4Jaw?
Any interface costs accuracy or additional set up/inspection time, or both. In a 4 jaw, it does not matter what the interface is, you are indicating the stick.
I use any convenient combination of 4 jaw chucks, and Buck-Forkhardt & Kalamazoo adjustru chucks..
Here's another note on the steady: Easy to set if you are setting up a parallel round/tube etc. If you are setting it up for a tapered shaft (such as a cue butt or shaft) it is a little more interesting. If the axis of rotation is off center, the holes bored will be tapered, and the face will not be flat. It may or may not be close enough. Makes the 4J seem convenient.
All that said, a solid class 7 bearing as a steady rest, sized so a shaft or butt can wedge in it without a collet or interface, would run quite true. I'll grant you that. Fast, accurate, if on centerline. Put a resilient collet in, and it is fast and reliable but less accurate.
Your point about a chuck on both ends of the lathe spindle can influence (bend) the shaft is worth paying attention to. I think most of us do.
There's lots of methods, but some are less adaptable to accurate wood shafts, and some are more so.
Are you building cues?
smt
You are overlooking a few things.
If you are drilling a steel shaft and if it is round, you can put it directly in the bronze jaws of a steady rest with nil clearance and a little oil, moly, or your personal elixir, and work the end - driil, bore, face, crown very accurately.
Now try that with wood?
Put roller tips on, you already lost your accuracy.
Put it in a cat head to use the steady, why not just use a 4Jaw?
Any interface costs accuracy or additional set up/inspection time, or both. In a 4 jaw, it does not matter what the interface is, you are indicating the stick.
I use any convenient combination of 4 jaw chucks, and Buck-Forkhardt & Kalamazoo adjustru chucks..
Here's another note on the steady: Easy to set if you are setting up a parallel round/tube etc. If you are setting it up for a tapered shaft (such as a cue butt or shaft) it is a little more interesting. If the axis of rotation is off center, the holes bored will be tapered, and the face will not be flat. It may or may not be close enough. Makes the 4J seem convenient.
All that said, a solid class 7 bearing as a steady rest, sized so a shaft or butt can wedge in it without a collet or interface, would run quite true. I'll grant you that. Fast, accurate, if on centerline. Put a resilient collet in, and it is fast and reliable but less accurate.
Your point about a chuck on both ends of the lathe spindle can influence (bend) the shaft is worth paying attention to. I think most of us do.
There's lots of methods, but some are less adaptable to accurate wood shafts, and some are more so.
Are you building cues?
smt
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I built some for me and my friends, I also built highly accurate target rifles, like I said I slip sleeve on shaft and take a cut on in the center before to install in the steady rest.
The greatest precision is obtained between center and in steady rest, If you ream a precision hole in a chuck with the tailstock you will obtain an oversized hole by 2 time the difference in height between the center of chuck and the center of tailstock and for long piece it will not happening in a steady rest..
This is a pool cue forum.
Not a gunsmith forum.
Your method should work fine but so does mine without a steady rest.