bikermike81 wrotehow do you make the twist? im new to the whole lathe thing and id really like to know how to do that-mike
Hi Bikermike,
That twist wasn't done on the lathe at all. It's more of a carving technique I guess.
What I did after I rounded the post with a belt sander was to mark up a grid of rectangles around the post. Then I drew a diagonal line connecting the corners of some of the rectangles, continuing down the line. Using a saws-all reciprocating saw, I cut into the post using the diagonal line as a guide. I cut down about an inch or so for this. Once all of the kerfs were cut (I had four kerfs), I started shaping. Using rasps, a hand plane, chisels and dremel sanding drums I started shaping from in between the two kerfs down. So, centered between two cuts was the high point and I shaped down toward the bottom of the cuts.
I hope this image will show what I tried to say:
I guess it took me about 16 hours to get the rough shape and another three or so of sanding.
I used the same technique when I made this lamp with mahogany.
A fellow forum member: kd6vpe posted a how-to about a rope twist candle holder that came out beautifully (both the video and the candle holder 🙂 ) on youtube.
I don't know of a way to make a rope twist with a lathe. There are milling machines that can do so with spindles using a router that traverses the length of the spindle as the spindle spins slowly. In fact there is a thread on this forum for just such a milling machine: https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=7019&highlight=shopnotes with some nice links in the thread.
