Warren Nakkela Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Hey Y'all, Ever tried hot spinning. Sure is fun to see what you can make. Chuck a piece of tubing in your lathe. I have used mostly inch and a half steel tube. If you have an engine lathe it works better than a bench lathe. Get it spinning quite fast, medium speed or faster. With your o/a torch in one hand and a round nosed bar in the other, get it red and using the tool post as a fulcrum start forming the tubing. You can even close up the end in a flat or half round shape. I have belled out tubing to make funnels. Have made nobs on the ends of handles. Give it a try. Don't use your best lathe but I guess you can if careful. The chuck does not seem to get too hot. Warren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Will you cut that OUT!? I grew up in Father's metal spinning shop and we spun more stuff hot than you'd believe. The pic is Dad spinning and Sherrie holding torch. I spent many sweaty, smelly, smokey hours of my youth holding torch for one spinner or another. A word of advice, make up a set of scissor tools to do your spinning. Especially if your going to spin tubing hot. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Hi Frosty, Please define or show what you call scissor tools and how you use them, Are they same as glassblowers tool but heavier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devon blacksmith Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Hi I think thay are a tool of two leavers if you look at spining on utube thay use something like this on larger jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Nakkela Posted February 7, 2009 Author Share Posted February 7, 2009 Not you Frosty! Was talking to those folks that may not have tried it. Warren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 The link I had of a video is dead so I did a quick search. These were in the first two pages. Site one is a buddy of mine name of Bazz. His scissor tools are about the same as we used in Father's shop. The other guys the left hand tools are built differently, especially the Au. site. Still, the mechanics are the same.custom metal spinning lathe,metal spinning tools, spinning toolHand-Spinning Fender ArtMetal Spinning - Introduction Warren, you keep asking questions that strike kind of close to home. Are you an ET or something? Do I need to put my foil hat back on? Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Thanks for that Frosty, obviously they are not like glassblower tools Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 They ARE somewhat different. Now you have me wondering if a person could spin hot glass like metal. Hmmmm. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Nakkela Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 Spin Glass? First make a suit of armor! l Warren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petersenj20 Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Frosty, that picture is cool. Thanks for sharing. Wish I could get my old lady to take part. (Not really) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 They do spin glass, a molten glob stuck on a pole, (Check those for technical terminology, but they will give you an idea of the preparation) rotated by hand and formed to shape with various tools to give bowls or jug shapes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I've seen glass twirled, spun and slung on the blow pipe and other tools. I wasn't actually suggesting glass be spun in a lathe like metal, just sharing a rather vivid mental image. Then again weirder (I think) things have been done. Have you ever wondered what was going through the mind of the first person to jump on a horse's back? Hmmmm. I wonder if he asked Og to hold his beer? Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike-hr Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Thank you folks for this thread.. I've been stuck for a few days on a project, I need a trumpet shape that goes from 8-1/2 inch to 12 inch, in 6 inches . Spinning appears like the answer. I'll post pics and questions as they come along. Frosty, thank you for the links, especially the fender one.. First question, could I free hand spin a trumpet shape, or do I need a wooden mold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oak Hill Forge Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Frosty ..... you amaze me..... is there anything you HAVEn't done ? Your detail about the branding iron was pretty special too.... Thanks for sharing with us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kasaino Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I agree, Frosty you are definetly not a ULTRAMAROON! you know quite a bit Im glad your part of IFI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 (edited) You trying to make me blush? Sheesh, I just have a good memory sometimes. There's so much stuff I've never tried I couldn't make a list of major catagories in this lifetime. Dad was a metal spinner, I had to work in the shop as a kid and picked up on it. Not a big thing. Mike: It takes a lot, years worth of experience to "free spin" (as I remember Dad calling it) or "spin on air." (as spinners are calling it now) You'll want to make the form (or chuck or die depending on who you're talking to) from maple and if you have to glue up boards to make a block large enough criss cross the grain like plywood and keep it edge on to the plane of rotation. What material are you going to try spinning? It's important for tool selection, especially if you're hand spinning. You probably don't want to make up a set of scissor tools for a one off job and certainly don't want to buy a set!! Bazz's prices are actually darned reasonable. If you have specific questions Bazz is a good guy to ask, tell him I sent you and he's subbed to MAF if you hang there at all. I think there are a few other spinners on MAF as well. What I say about spinning is from memories nearly 40 years old so do NOT take them as THE word. Ask someone who is currently spinning like Bazz. Even when I was spinning all I ever used were scissor tools, I've never touched metal with a hand tool. I know a bit about them but I've never used one. Frosty Edited February 12, 2009 by Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike-hr Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Here's a picture of the project, it's a cap piece, pinnacle-like object, for a fancy octagonal gazebo. The whole thing will be about six foot tall, the picture is of the base. The round sphere is a 12 inch stainless 'gazing ball', on order from a garden supply outfit. You can see the two trumpet shapes that capture the ball. I'm not too worried about the trim beads on the trumpets, I can roll rings from roundstock and fix them on appropriately. I have two options so far, one is to spin the trumpets out of 16 ga sheet. my SB lathe will swing a 16 in piece, but i need to do some volume and circumfrence calculating to see what size piece I need to start with, and if it would fit in the lathe. I have a buddy with a removable-gap lathe I could most likely use, if I could do the job cold. The other option, the more scary one, is I have a chunk of 8 inch pipe, 7-5/8 ID, 8-5/8 OD, 1/2 inch wall thickness. My 3-jaw chuck won't grab it, but I could cap the end and weld a managable socket to the cap. I'm worried that the half-inch wall of the pipe might be resistant to what I need to do with it. I would need to neck down some, and flare out some. I suppose I could take a cut on the pipe and lose some wall thickness pretty easy.. I don't mind making the scissor roller tools, but I wonder if the two different processes described would warrant different styles of tools. It also appears that the spinner folks do this scissoring thing freehand, I wonder why they dont mount the roller in the tool post, and use the carriage and cross slide of the lathe. Thanks for listening, I actually enjoy challenges like these, I just wish I knew why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 What metal do you want to spin? If you say SS I'm going to tell you to to find a metal spinner who will spin SS. You'll be surprised at how many full time spinners are scared spitless of stainless. Brass and bronze are both pretty darned advanced metals to start with too. Copper and soft aluminum are good ones to start with. You can have copper nickle plated and chromed to mimic polished SS so that might work for you. CR mild steel is a bit tougher to spin but I really enjoyed it back when. Forget the heavy pipe, it'll require WAY more force than your lathe can take in any dimension. Not only does the tool rest have to resist thousands of psi of force, the motor has to be able to pull the load. For that matter spinning 1/2" steel requires forces that would flip your lathe on it's side and still not move the part. Turn some maple dies for your part and if you're into it make some scissor tools. Turning a bead on the edges is pretty darned easy, there are tutorials online if you can find them. Oh yeah, there's a world of difference between hand spinning and scissor spinning. Hand spinners will sometimes claim that scissor spinning isn't spinning at all but that's mostly ego speaking. The reason you spin manually rather than use the feeds on a lathe is feel. You HAVE to have a feel for what the metal is doing. Spinning will work harden metal very quickly, especially if you can't feel it. Spinning is inherently quite dangerous and knowing exactly what's happening with the part is essential to keeping all your fingers and blood where they belong. You'll see videos of automatic and CNC lathes shear spinning but your lather doesn't have the power nor rigidity for shear spinning of the gauge and dia. you need. It's likely you will have to make several spin anneal cycles to finish the parts with a small lathe like yours. I think the smallest weakest lathe Father had ran on a 2 1/2 hp motor and they were designed for spinning. For a 16" part like your drawing shows you'll probably need a 18" blank to start with. But that's a may decades out of practice guess. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike-hr Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Thanks Frosty, that all made sense. The material will be mild steel plate, we can get it powder coated to a bronze color, it should look good with the SS ball. I'll get to work on some tooling, and start with some smaller scale pieces to get a feel for this. Thanks again, I'm excited about this.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Nakkela Posted February 12, 2009 Author Share Posted February 12, 2009 If you like big bangs, look into explosive forming. It helps to have a friend with an explosive license. Learn first then be careful. Warren Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 You're very welcome Mike. If you'd like to run the drawings past me I might be able to make some suggestions. The big thing to remember is the part has to have a way to slip off the form. Imagine trying to get the ship out of the bottle without folding the masts. It just sucks big time to have a nice part spun and not be able to get it off the die. There are ways to make tooling for "reentrant" shapes but it's complicated. You don't need an explosives license though, so it isn't out of the question for the hobbyist or home shop. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike-hr Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 I got some scissor tools made, 3 inch diameter hardened 4140 rollers, I've made 2 rollers that fit into the scissors tool so far. One roller tapers to a 1/2 inch radius, the other tapers to a 3/8 inch radius. The scissors system seems to work good, they have enough compound leverage to stop the lathe if I push too hard. I made a face plate and glued up a big maple block. The maple is amazing stuff, it's taken lots of abuse so far and hasn't exploded. I tried the first round with 16 guage hot roll steel sheet, it seemed like it took a lot of effort. we were making progress, then the sheet buckled on the outside of the disc. Bumpity, bumpity goes the scissor tool. I next bought a sheet of cold rolled steel 18 guage and had the waterjet guy cut me a bunch of discs, ranging from 8 inch to 16 inch. I ruined 6 discs this afternoon, but i had a great time doing it! What seems to happen each time, as I'm attempting to spin my trumpet shape, is things start out good, I start at the center and scissors out in small increments. There's a certain point where the outer third of the disc starts to generate a Toroid shape ( I think that's what it's called) where it oil cans its way backwards as I'm spinning out from the center. If I disreguard the Toroid, it keeps generating itself until the disc has a really nifty, but not desirable, backwards rolled edge. When I try to correct this flare, I'm free spinning. I work it very carefully, but something strange keeps happening, and the piece folds up again, and I'm back to bumpity, bumpity with the roller, and reaching for another disc. I watched some metal spinning videos on youtube, they don't seem to have this flaring problem, but they're apparantly working aluminum and copper. Any Ideas? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 (edited) First. Move the pivot for your scissor to the left on the rest and move the rest a little farther away. Second. Before you start spinning take an oak or hickory or maple or elm, etc. stick (1"x2" is plenty) with a saw cut about 3/4" deep in the end and with the well lubed blank turning slip it onto the edge put a bend like a pizza pan rim back towards the tailstock. It'll look like what's happening now but will actually help prevent it. The stick MUST be resting on the tool rest and long enough to go under your arm! As I'm sure you can imagine, if this puppy gets away from you it might kill you. Third, Lube the blank. White grease works pretty well, though a search for spinning lube will find you the real thing. Father used to make his own but Fels Naptha soap has been reformulated and doesn't work anymore. Fourth, for a 6" - 8" blank spin it around 3,000rpm. (getting scared yet? You should be.) Now use your 1/2" radius roller, starting at the center apply a steady pressure against the blank and stroke it all the way to the outside edge. This is NOT spinning on air, not technically anyway. What you want to see is the blank start following the die until you start getting considerable resistance and the rim of the blank (It'll look like a flat brimmed hat) starts backing away from the die or looking like a bent bicycle wheel. At that point make your pass to the edge to take the blank back towards the die. (headstock) Repeat. Last word. This is extremely hazardous. Stay out of the plane of rotation, when blanks start rippling on you they can disintegrate sending shrapnel across your shop hard enough to stick it in cinderblock. Don't be in the way. Frosty Edited February 27, 2009 by Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike-hr Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 Thanks for the reply Frosty. There's dinner and hydration waiting for you in South orygun whenever you're passing through.. I understand the pizza pan/stick idea, counter-intuitive, but I'll try it tomorrow. I've been lubing with parrafin wax, per one of the links in the previous post. It seems to let the roller slip along, but if you think it's an issue, I'll search for spinning lube. My lathe RPM is probably low. I've got her cranked up, but I doubt I'm over 1000 RPM, I can check it tomorrow with my antique Starret RPM guage, the funny looking thing I bought at a yard sale years ago because it said starret, but only recently learned what it does...I may need to do a quick re-jackhaft pulley, easy fix, to gain some more warp speed. When I take the stroke to the outside of the disc, do I tackle the pizza brim on that stroke? or leave it be until the end? Thanks again for your help, I forgot to mention my wife is a massage therapist, heavily trained on hypertonic blacksmith muscles, I'll make sure she has a go at you before dinner and hydration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcraigl Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 MMM..... Massage, beer, and Korean Ribs.... Frosty, you better come for a visit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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