Mills/bevellers to made final tapered strips

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AJ Bamboo		#21	[url]	[-]
Posts: 777 01/23/2009 03:58	with all the technical wizardry a powered finish beveler is a very fussy animal and is at least as hard as hand planing to master. they need sort of an artists touch to get them to work well even though when dealing with rigid taper forms and power feeds it would seem to be counter-intuitive. to put it another way, if you expect a power beveler to help with poor process control, poor basic technique or to make the job easier in a non-physical labor sense then you are headed the wrong direction
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ShenRods		#22	[url]	[-]
Posts: 169 01/24/2009 09:44	Let me follow-up on some of these comments having owned and played with a number of the available mills / bevelers. First - most hand planers do not prepare their strips well enough for a mill - even for the Morgan Hand Mill. Having a mill will teach someone how well a strip needs to be prepared for mill and actually strips should be prepared that well for hand planing but most people don't. The mill will accent any weakness in preparation work. As AJ says, it is all about process control. There is differences in preparation between using a mill or beveler - that is a whole different story since different processes involved. Second - once you have properly prepared strips - the mill will give you a much more consistent strip and glued up section than hand planing. Again - most hand planers will not have all their angles perfect all the way down all their strips as a mill will give you. These small but cumulative discrepancies effect the glued up result. Overall, milled strips give you a much more consistent glued up section and are significantly straighter. Thirdly - ref this comment "I have been told by Forrest Maxwell that you can get accuracy on these finish bevellers on the order of what you get hand planing , that is flat to flat measurements within a thousandth or two of desired final" Actually the opposite is true. It is hand planing that must come close to the order of accuracy that you get using a mill. On a glued up section I am normally within .001" at any station and from flat to flat anywhere. I glue up straight off my mill - I can mill tapers that are impossible for hand planers to attempt. I just did a 8' Fairy Catskill blank - final tips .044" and dramatic Leonard swell that is centered perfectly. I can do a tip down to .036" but now we are at the very limits of what the bamboo fibers allow / support. Normally I do fine tips at .052" - .060" and think nothing of it. A well tuned mill will do this easily. Lastly - In talking with John Zimny on Quads - the results he achieves with our JW CNC mill is better than anything he achieved with planing forms / Morgan Handmill. Much nicer corners and flat to flat measurments. So - consider it an evolutional step for a rodmaker to advance from planing bars to a mill - there is steep learning curve (it is not just swap the mill for a planing form) and not all will be satisfied with the results if they don't adapt their processes to support the mill. Chris
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john channer		#23	[url]	[-]
Posts: 695 01/24/2009 10:56	Chris; Would you mind posting a description of what you go thru to prep strips for your mill? I'm curious as to your straightening process. thanks john
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ShenRods		#24	[url]	[-]
Posts: 170 01/24/2009 17:35	John Gentle sweeps in strips are OK - hold downs take care of that but kinks are bad. - flatness is an absolute must - and I do mean flat. I use Tim Abbott's steaming method / manifold and have two of his node presses. Doing a lot of blonde rods I now have worry about burnt nodes. I steam the nodes and then press/straighten in one operation. I have gotten very good manually straightening them while pressing that I don't even use his side press. I normally press anywhere from 60 - 100 strips at a time - normally takes around 2 - 2 1/2 hours. I tried to find a picture of my set-up on the shop deck but I could not locate one - I normally do all strip preparation during the summer and just have bundles of cane on the shelf ready for the mill. I use the JW rougher for all my strip preparation - but I do have a thicknessing attachment that Dennis Bertram's rougher now has one that emulates. It was one of the ideas I gave him for his new rougher. I prefer taking down the strips with the JW on multiple passes rather than have a one pass rougher - it gives me time to see imperfections and correct them. I also make a pass to take off the rounded back - flatten it - People have seen me demonstrate this technique. A strip with a flat back sits better on the mill platten and also in a planing form. I am careful not to remove powerfibers - just the enamel - but it is flat. The whole point is not how fast you can get a strip to triangles but how good are the strips are when you get there. Chris
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john channer		#25	[url]	[-]
Posts: 697 01/25/2009 00:42	Thanks Chris; That's generally what I do,too, tho I haven't tried steaming and flattening the back sounds worthwhile. I am always curious about what other machines require, I use a mill that I made myself to rough and initial taper ala Bellingers handplaners friend and have definitely noticed that the better the strip going in, the better the strip coming out. john
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ShenRods		#26	[url]	[-]
Posts: 171 01/25/2009 10:36	John - flattening the back - I reduce the strip alot before I flatten. A lot of people split and then try to heat press strips - ala Cattanach's book. Bad move - requires too much heat because of all the additional mass. Reduce the amount of cane. The pith side is useless cane which is removed anyway. Plus I make both sides parallel so the pith side follows the enamel - easier for displacing cane rather than squeezing / compressing strips - I normally dimension the strips to .170 - .180 for butts depending on taper, and .150 for tips. Then I start getting triangles with the JW. Once I run them through it a few times I will then flatten via the steaming method - can do this with heat gun - flamed strips are not that critical for color as blond - now flattening requires far less heat to move the cane. I have a modified bed on my JW (after I wore out 3 oak ones - Mine is now aluminum lined) that will leave black marks on the high spots. Very easy to know the quality of strip I am dealing with and what work it needs. Mills are honest brokers on the quality of strips - you cannot fake it - in hand planing people can fudge it a bit - a mill will quickly give you an accurate assessment. Bottom line - the better strips you got going into milling or planing - the better result you will get out. Having a mill forces the maker to really develop good techniques and practice excellent process control methods to insure good strips. Chris
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brookies	Mills	#27	[url]	[-]
Posts: 3 01/25/2009 19:21	Hi All, I liked making my own mill more than making rods actually. Precision spindle ,linear rails ,carbide cutters. Can glue hex strips off the maple pattern boards and with in .001. Yes you can adjust taper on maple patterns,cut relief on under side of the board flex and shim like Dickerson. I make more quads than hexes and cannot glue off the pattern yet .I over cut by .015 to .020 and finish by hand. The strips are flamed witch makes the 90's more fragile . I have not tried blond strips, maybe I could glue them? I have a hard time believing any one can make a mill that can glue up quads. J W or Bellinger ? If the J W Mill can glue quad strips can it do flamed strips? I think my next project in the next 10 years will be a beveller ( saw blades) for quads. BTW some Edwards beveller made quads had tight glue lines and others have gaps just depends. Regards
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ShenRods		#28	[url]	[-]
Posts: 172 01/25/2009 19:40	OK - John Zimny who flames heavily does his quads on the JW CNC mill - best edges he ever had is with this mill - and then you have Jerry Foster who is doing 8-sided - both butts and tips on the mill - I can do ultra fine tips - as fine as anything Leonard did - we all glue up straight from the mill. Also, I have done nodeless on the mill - I think that covers it all. Chris
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J W Foster		#29	[url]	[-]
Posts: 36 01/25/2009 20:13	Chris.. you forgot ferrule-less and bamboo ferrules. :-) + multiple hollowing techniques... Jerry
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ShenRods		#30	[url]	[-]
Posts: 173 01/26/2009 19:31	Jerry - I know - I was just trying to cover the basics - can you do this or that - the answer is yes - just like Prego - it is in it. In someways, what I have learned to do with this mill is like trying to explain the Boeing 747/777 to Orvile Wright or GPS inertial navigation to Christopher Columbus. As a rodmaker this mill is the cats meow - I am now only limited by the material itself and my imagination. I paid my dues with earlier mills, but I think we have achieved what many only dream about. It is the result of a lot of hard work and the school of hard knocks. As you know I have done very creative hollowing with internal tapers with small hollows and micro dams - unable to be reproduced by manual methods. Also on doing the swells - do you want a straight, convex or concave swell - love to flaunt the mill capabilites. When I had Jim Dempsey (JED) stop by this spring, JED picked up quickly on what this mill could do. He worked at Payne alongside Walt Carpenter. When I finished running a few strips, he said "the old man would be wetting his pants about now" and he was reffering to Jim Payne himself. That is an ultimate complement. It is that good. I have to pinch myself everynow and then and sometimes I just giggle at what I am able to accomplish so easily and quickly. As a result of that visit, JED donated the Gillum mill to the CFFC&M and ordered a JW CNC mill - I will go down in March / April do some fishing and spend time with him and the mill - catching him up on its capabilities. In my mind 99% of the classic rods were run on mills / bevelers - when you look at them - they are surprisingly good. We have just applied some new technology to them. The old mills were essentially analogue computers with fiixed patterns - those paterns were hard to make and change. With digital technology - we have virtual paterns - I can put a new taper or modify it in seconds. No manual setting. I have a couple of tapers that I plan to do this spring. One of them is a Varney taper that has dramatic changes over an inch and half right at each guide. These are very innovative ideas that I will try to replicate. I took precise measurements from the original rod and will see how it comes out, but I can do it - not approximate the taper, but fully replicate it. So - onward and upward - enjoy the journey. Chris
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BigTJ		#31	[url]	[-]
Posts: 698 01/26/2009 20:08	Chris, Any chance we can get some pics of that contraption of yours? It sound cool it would be great to see it. And by the way based on your description of what that thing can do I think most of us might do more than just wetting our pants seeing that thing in action. On another note, I sure am jealous of your ability to press 60 to 100 strips in 2-21/2 hours. 60 strips (240 nodes in 150 minutes) is nothing short of amazing in my book, much less 100 strips in 2 hours (400 nodes in 120 min, or 3 nodes a minute!). I am working as best as I can and it's still taking me an hour (5 mins a node on average) to press 3 strips at a time. Partly because I'm a perfectionist, partly because I won't throw away a bent culm, partly because I just don't have the experience, and partly because I don't have the right system in place. I'll keep trying to improve some day I will get there, I know what the benchmark is. Best regards, -John
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brookies	JW Mill	#32	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4 01/26/2009 22:10	I think I will tip my hat to JW mill sounds like he has a great mill. Would love to see a picture of a flamed quad strip milled if some one wants to post ? Want to see the clean edges. Where is the Tim Allbot node press available at? Last Edited By: brookies 01/26/2009 22:14. Edited 1 time.
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john channer		#33	[url]	[-]
Posts: 701 01/26/2009 23:11	Chris; I'm getting a serious case of tool envy! You and Jerry are going to have me either buying lottery tickets like a fool or trying to get yet another mortgage on the homestead, well, maybe when the economy recovers. I think the two best things you gain are the ability to produce perfect strips and being able to experiment with tapers in something less than a month or two between tries. Good luck, I hope your shop survives these times intact. I had managed to figure out some time ago that thicknessing the strips is a big help, I split as close as possible and then run the strips thru a contraption I made with a sanding drum, drill press and a block of wood with a nail in it to take the excess unneccesary crap off the back of the strips and to make them the same thru the nodes, it does make straightening much easier Thanks for all the info john
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ShenRods		#34	[url]	[-]
Posts: 174 01/27/2009 09:44	John You might want to look at Powerfibers issue 24 - when I first got the mill, I did an article on the mill - still in the unexpanded workshop - cannot believe how crowded I was. I have not updated it - plenty of detail pictures and short video clip I did. I did a presentation at Corbett Lake in 2006 on it. Node pressing - Tim Abbot has done presentations on his method at both Corbett Lake and the Catskill Gathering (twice). I try to steer people to his presentations - not sexy topic, but very important. He also has an excellent system on planing strips that people should take notice of. Having a system is the key - I have seen lots of guys with char marks on strips from heat guns burning the strips trying to press the raw nodes - not cool for blond rods. I prep strips to be flattened (notice I do not say press since the back is relieved) to get a more predictable result. Don't even think about flattening raw split strips - too much extra mass. I use two presses to flatten - while one strip is cooling in a press, I take the strip out of the other, grab a strip from the steam manifold, wipe the water off, quick pass over a heat gun dries it and into the press, spin the handle and on to the next vise. No waiting for heating up a strip or cooling off - non-stop pressing - I figure about 30 seconds per node is the average. The key to steaming is to heat the presses prior to pressing - keeping them warm. I also have a commercial wallpaper steamer as my steam source. Tim has all this info in his presentation. He also makes the manifolds and presses (they are sweet) for sale - while you are at it - his wrapping system is a work of art. His email is: abbott.t@worldnet.att.net Chris
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canerodscom		#35	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1961 01/27/2009 10:00 Bamboo preacher	My friend Chris says "The key to steaming is to heat the presses prior to pressing - keeping them warm" and I suspect he is correct. I concluded that steam alone is not warm enough to soften bamboo. The press itself needs to be HOT. Tim Abbott and I worked for months on my steaming system and never were able to make it work reliably. I really appreciate Tim's guidance, patience and efforts. Diligence and experience with a heat gun will teach you to flatten and straighten nodes without charring. If you are getting significant charring then things are too hot. Move the strip farther from the nozzle. Harry Harry Boyd maker@canerods.com http://www.canerods.com http://www.canerods.blogspot.com http://www.bamboorodschool.com
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ShenRods		#36	[url]	[-]
Posts: 175 01/27/2009 11:55	Harry Yes - heat the press - I got mine hot - with steaming the moisture conducts heat more efficiently than air. Thus you take a warm moist strip and put it in a cold press it will literally suck the heat out of the strip immediately. Steaming isolates the moisture to the node area. Now, some guys advocate soaking the strips overnight prior to heating and flattening - they heat faster and will not char like a dry strip. Then you need to dry them out. However I find there may be some dis-colorization to blond strips in soaking. Just seems to make them darker - OK if you like that look. Basically air is an insulator and water is a conductor. Still with the method Tim and I use - suggest people try reducing the bulk on the strips you are heating - will require less heat - moisture will increase the thermal transfer to the strip. Flattening is then a lot easier and potential charring damage is minimal. Chris
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BigTJ		#37	[url]	[-]
Posts: 701 01/27/2009 12:29	Thanks for the information guys. Chris, I will get those back issues of PFibers and look at them. For what it's worth I soak my strips prior to heating so no char marks to worry about. The other part of soaking I really like is that I can straighten without gloves on. I hold my fingers about 3" from the point I'm trying to bend, and as soon as I feel it get hot to the touch, I know my node is warm enough. Another major part of my problems have been "not getting it right" the first time. I am learning on difficult multiple-kink nodes to rotate my fan nozzle and apply heat exactly where I want it. Then - the most critical part - is to let radical kinks cool completely before moving to the next one. On double-humps, I do the kink on one side of the node, then the other, until I get a "V" at the node with straight strip on either side. Then I set it aside and work on another strip while the first is cooling for at least a minute. All that is left is to come back, straighten the apex of the "v" and the press to flatten. What was messing me up was a wide swath of heat, that just undoes what you previously did and makes you go back to scratch. Plain old pressing of these types of nodes doesn't seem to work for me either, on the bad ones it seems you have to move the fibers "past center" for them to really stay. Anyway I've got about 90 more strips to straighten before I call it good for the winter so all these ideas will give me food for thought. to try to improve. Pressing nodes flat is actually probably the easiest part of the operation, for me at least. I took the idea of putting a "half moon" in the pith side from articles on the rodmaker's list serve and from Bob's tutorial on this site one step further. Now I am cutting a precise "relief" slot in the pit side instead of an overall-half-moon in no particular spot other than beneath the node. I do this because every node is a little different and I find that if I don't put the relief slot in the optimal spot the node won't be flattened as well as it could be with a little more care with respect to where the slot goes. I realize this process is "over the top" for somebody who makes rods for a living, but it's actually kind of fun and a bit satisfying for a hobbyist like me. To prep my strips I put them all in a pile ready for the relief slot to be maked. I line up my node hump with the small relief cut that's in my vise where the nodal hump goes (I don't file the hump before splitting). Then, I mark where the vise is with a pencil mark each sie, and then two marks where I want my relief slot to be on the pith side. After all the strips are makred, I put about a 30-40 thousandths relief slot in with a double cut file, which only takes a couple seconds and is much more conrollable than a belt sander. When I go to press my node, the places on the side of the hump that are too "low" relative to the node stay in place, and the hump is perfectly displaced the way I want it. On the pith side, the pit is now flat as the displaced material fills in the place where the relief cut was. On the hump side, there are about 20 thousandths of cap material and enamel that I gently file off with a double then single cut file. I'm left with a dead flat node. The key is that the node goes in hot enough, and that once it's in ther, it completely cools. When I do this I don't get any "bounce back" on my nodes later on. I guess if I really want to speed things up I'll have to start cutting my strips on the bandsaw. If all I have to do is press the nodes not straighten then I think 30 seconds a node would be pretty do-able. I guess I'll give it a try next winter. Anway thanks again Chris I will check out powerfibers back issues, talk to you later, adn thanks for the inspiration - John Last Edited By: BigTJ 01/27/2009 12:34. Edited 1 time.
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Mills/bevellers to made final tapered strips

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