Shopsmith Forums

I am trying to build a adjustable height music stand with a turned base and a Dowel through center to act as the height adjustment. Basically small 1 1/2" through a 3 1/2" spindle. any idea's?

Thank's in advance.

How deep?

Basic scenario would be to turn spindle to round. Use Forstner bit to drill while still mounted in a lathe chuck or on a faceplate. With an extension for the Forstner bit you can get about 9" deep.
My tailstock seems to wobble too much to do this as accurately as I want, so I put my lathe chuck on the tailstock arbor and mount the bit in the drill chuck.

I was hoping to go about 18" into a 30" spindle.

This is how I drilled through a 22" pepper mill.
[img]drilling%20pepper%20grinder[/img]

randyt wrote:I was hoping to go about 18" into a 30" spindle.

I think that is a horizontal boring task, not a lathe task.

Horizontal boring is the way to go IMO (not known for being humble). Your key is going to be your table/fixture being as perfectly parallel to the spindle as possible.

I recently had to cut many round tenons and found that it was helpful to first bore a through hole through a piece of perfectly squared wood (at least in 2 dimensions) with everything at final configuration (DON'T change anything between test and final bore) and then measure the thickness of the hole at each end. Since you are planning on a 18" hole I highly recommend that your test drill be at least that long to assure no wobble in the final hole.

That's a tough alignment!

Forrest

You could go with a square channel inside the 3 1/2" spindle instead. While the spindle is still square, cut it in half and rout or dado a 1 1/2" wide by 3/4" deep groove down the center of both pieces, then glue the halves back together. As long as the core touches the inner channel snugly on 4 sides, I don't think you'll have any wobble.

Gary