Lego Cue Lathe

btoneill

btoneill

Keeper of the Cheese
Silver Member
So I've been sick of trying to do cleaning and such on my shafts without having a lathe. I don't want to spend the money on a lathe just to lightly sand, burnish, and wax my shafts.

So... The Solution?

This evening I made myself a cue lathe out of Lego's and a Black and Decker drill. It's not useable for doing tip work at all, but for doing shaft cleaning/conditioning it works great!

I have pictures of it at: http://gallery.me.com/btoneill#100008

Video of it in use at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt0jBn1yMfI (It's my first YouTube video so be gentle...)

Nothing like some good old fashioned ingenuity...
 
The way you have the toy wheels spinning the shaft you can't get enough pressure to do a proper job. That was clear by how lightly you touched the shaft...especially the burnishing. Why not improve it? Buy a joint pin that matches your cue...then install one end in the shaft & the other in the drill. That will give at least better results.
Wait until the kids find their toys...then decide to play with them AND daddy's cue.:grin:
 
This was prototype #1...

I got home from work today and decided to see what was in my house that I could use to spin the shaft... I debated butchering one of my joint protectors to get on the drill but decided against it. Any heavy sanding and it slows down but I was quite impressed with how the shafts I did on it tonight came out. Much better then when done by hand (not perfect by any means). But, what the hell can I expect from Lego's... And done while drinking...
 
I used to have the dead nuts perfect set up for doing tips and shaft cleanings on the cheap. I had a set of clamps that were made especially to hold a dril on one end with a ball bearing center on the other end. You could clamp those to any table set the distance and go to town. I could do a tip in five minutes and it looked better than factory new.

Lost that set in a move many moons ago and have never once seen another like it. Bummer because that was a great set up.

You can also use two vices to do the same thing.

Hell, I did at least a hundred tips using just the drill with the right pin held between my feet.
 
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