Spinning some shafts

[monterey]

I've had some poplar blanks in the shop for months waiting to be dowelled into shafts, so decided that this would be a good day to give them a try.

My shaft spinning set up
   

I had tried poplar quite a few years ago and was dissapointed to find my blanks coming off the saw table with huge curves in them.  As in 7 or 8 inches worth.  apparently the straight board had a lot of built in stress which was released when sawed into blanks.

Yet, I kept seeing reports here of poplar making good shafts, so decided to try it again.

Here they are straight out of the doweller and I gotta say that these come out smoother than anything I've previously run.  I like Doug Fir, but they come out very ragged and need a lot of finishing.  I sanded these up starting with 120 and then to 220, 320 and ending with 400.  Makes for a very nice finish.

     

While rummaging through my junk I also came across this forgotten experiment.  This is from a 1/2" blank to which I attached a 1/2" teak footing and then spun it after it was footed.  It went in reasonably straight and came out very straight.

Looked like this right out of the doweler.

   

[goobersan]

Looks great Monterey! I've just tried a couple douglas fir shafts with teak footings. Are you planning to taper the shafts at all ?

[monterey]

Not sure on the taper.  I have everything needed to build a taper jig but have not gotten to it yet.

The footed shaft seemed like a good candidate for another experiment.  I drilled a piece of metal stock 3/8" on one end and 3/16" on the other and drilled 6" straight into the shaft.  Then I epoxied five inches of 1/8" solder into It.

Gonna see how much it improves FOC.

not yet convinced on the teak for footing.  Have you used it previously?

Man, that is dedication right there!

Looks good so far. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Bisch

[monterey]

Might be a while, still have another set waiting for fletching, but sometime soon.