Firstly I took an old piece of MDF that was once a set of shelves, then a speaker box, and now wasting away in the garage and cut two pieces out. One was 5″ the other 4″. It took about 10/15mins to get through the MDF, I thought the drill bits were a bit crap but I think the drill itself is probably still underpowered. (it was quite a cheap unit when I bought it) Also I found it was very easy to get on an angle, possibly the density of the wood was different nearer the edges but I found it was digging in quite a fair amount on one side or the other and I ended up with not very even pieces. The first one wasn’t so bad but the second significantly skew. I will borrow a drill press to try and get a better piece, at least until I build my own later.

I put a bolt down the center shaft and tightened it up and placed the bolt into the chuck of my drill, then mounted the drill in the vice. To get foot control I tied a rope around the trigger, which travelled along my workbench to a nail then down and tied to a metal ruler/level at a height where I could push it down to pull the rope and as such, pull the trigger. I had some control over speed, but it could definately be improved.

This is how it came out, I was quite happy with this result.

I built a second but it came out quite skew, I will use a drill press to re-cut the MDF, and if its faster than the hand drill I might cut two circles, and stick them together to form a bigger pulley. something like so:

This will also give me a wider groove so I can use thicker belts.

Update 12 July 2010
I also refined my drill/lathe technique a little over the weekend. I think I will modify it further to become a slightly more permanent fixture with a bearing on the other side. because its only fixed to the drill its quite easy to push too hard and bend the drill which alters the shape of the turned wood. to start with I may just buy a 30cm peice of threaded steel, grind myself a nice 3 sided head on one side so that it fits into the drill nicely, and smooth the otherside and it can sit in some sort of fixed socket to provide a more stable shaft.

I also built the new pulley, twice as wide so it will accomodate more reasonably sized belts.

Currently my plan for the belt is to use rubber from an old push-bike inner tube

1. (5 July 2010) – Power and Drills
2. (17 July 2010) – New Wood Turner
3. (28 July 2010) – New Wood Turner: Wiring

(5 July 2010) – Power and Drills

First thing I needed for my generator was either cogs or a pulley/belt system to drive the washing machine engine. I thought about several different options from buying old car pulleys/belt, using a bevel/helical gear, or building my own cogs/gears/pulleys on the cheap.

I decided the cheapest option (since all my projects try to be as low cost as possible) for me is to try manufacture my own pulley’s from wood.
I needed a few things,

* Hole saw
* Reliable drill to run the saw
* Wood turning equipment to cut the grooves.

I had none of these so started with what I did have.

I had an old portable battery drill that had a battery that was dead and generally ready for the trash, I figured I could wire it into the mains and turns out I was able to find an old ATX PSU that put out enough power, so I snipped all the ATX connectors down fit inside case, covered the ends up with heatshrink (didn’t want one accidentally touching something) and rigged up a switch and so on so I could run it like a lab power supply.

(This PSU came in quite handy for other 12v (ish) projects like a peltier effect device I am playing around with.)

So now I have power, then I removed the casing of my drill battery pack, removed all the battery’s and chucked them (they were quite corroded) then basically clamped two cables to the connectors that go inside the drill, unfortunately it wouldn’t let me solder them on so I ended up turning the metal sheet over to clamp the cable in. I tied a knot in the cables before the hole so they wouldn’t tug on the connection. Then ran about 2.5m of cable out to a Molex Plug I picked up from jaycar so I could plug it neatly into the PSU.

I ended up buying a hole saw, I didnt have anything I could modify to make that, but it was only $20.

For the Lathe/Wood turner I found I could bolt the wood I wanted into work with into the drill, and mount the drill into a small vice and I used a rope tied around the trigger, around a nail, down to a metal level so I had it foot controlled. but I talk about this more in part 2.

(17 July 2010) – New Wood Turner

Ive started working on a new wood turner (I cant really call it a lathe as its shaft reliant) pics now, further update coming later.

(click for big)

the offcuts from the MDF I was using to make the pulley’s is used (leave no wood scraps behind) so its all odd shapes, its almost artistic! I just need to cut the bottom to a standard height, mount it to a small board, then figure out what ill mount that to. Probably make it like a vice that can be moved around, bench mountable, I also need to make another end that holds the other side of the shaft so that the shaft is stable, not able to move around, which is the biggest problem with the drill-in-a-vice “lathe”.

(28 July 2010) – New Wood Turner: Wiring

I finished wiring and testing the new setup. Power comes off the other psuedo drill pack and I’ve just hacked the bottom off the drill I am using for the turning. Power then goes too the jandal controller for analogue (ie: more presssure more speed) control of the motor. I mounted the original drill control into a recess into the bottom jandal and glued the jandals together. then it goes off to the drill in the mount.