Spinning

"The spinning trade in this country is mostly followed by foreigners, Germans and Swedes being the best. The American that has the intelligence and skill enough to be a first-class spinner, will generally look around for something easier about the time that he has the trade acquired. It is an occupation that cannot be followed up in old age, as it is too strenuous, the operator being on his feet constantly, and having to use his head as well as his muscles."

I love these old books. No effort to be politically correct - just calling them as they saw them. At least I've been warned that it's not an occupation for old guys but I do have some Germanic ancestry, maybe that will help make up for it. On the other hand, maybe what was true in 1910 still holds true today. We'll find out I guess.

Photo of the first form with the faceplate after glue up so I can spin the end cap for my Sprint exhaust. Since I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm just using treated lumber as the form rather than hard maple or other such wood. I think I've got it figured out how to make both the forms and the shell (the spun piece on the outside of the form). If my figuring is correct, it's going to take two forms to make the piece. I'm working on getting the tooling made to do everything on my little wood lathe. I'm anxious to see what I can accomplish with this.

So far, so good. Here's the mostly completed form on the lathe. You can't really tell from the photo, but the shape looks good for what I'm striving for. I need to make another form for the initial step and a follower and I should be able to spin out an end cap. Need to make the actual spinning tools first, however. I'm working on that.

Also working on putting the finishing touches on the pieces for the weld tester at work. I need to get a couple of proper set screws and then weld all the pieces together. Not much to it but I'll score some points with the boss. 

The weather's been great the last couple of days with a couple of more nice ones on the way. I got all my outside stuff taken care of other than running the lawn mower over the leaves one more time. I'll put the mower to bed for the winter and pull the snowblower out to make sure it's ready to rock - should be about ready as I need to be then. In the meantime, I'll keep picking away at the projects and enjoying the weather.