knitting needles

Re: knitting needles

Mark Kauder, Phenix City, AL

>Not knitting needles, but similar items. your have to have a fine touch and final work on the points (at least for me) was done mostly with sandpaper.

Use a dense straight grained wood.

Mark

This article on crochet hooks should help *LINK*

Dave Smith, Longview, WA

>Hi Barry,

Larry Hancock has a tutorial on making crochet hooks that should have a lot of info to help you. Larry is a great turner and even a nicer person. If you have any problems converting any of this in formation to knitting needles I am sure he will help you out.

Dave Smith

In between rain showers in Longview, WA.


Larry Hancock

Re: knitting needles

Barry Irby

>Barry, When I make finials and other small spindles, I take a blank about 5/8 square and sand off the corners at one end, making my own "No 2 Morse taper." I drive that into the shaft in the headstock with a few taps from a mallet. I usually bring the tail stock up against it until I round off the corners. When it becomes too flimsy to stand the compression from the tail stock, I move it out of the way and support it with a finger until I get the size right.

I know it's heresy here on the turning forum, but it might be easier to chuck a small 1/4" blank in a drill and run it on a sander, such as a belt sander turned upside down. I have made many short dowels that way. Takes seconds.

Re: knitting needles

Robert Cox

>I have a friend thasst makes them.

Some of them rather long.

thin spindles (long)

Rick Allen

>I make magic wands. Often they are 3/16 tapering to 1/4 and 11" long.

They are fairly simple to make. The key is to turn them round so they will fit into the headstock spindle and feed out a little at a time for turning to size.

Mount the stock between chuck and live center. use light pressure on the live center.

Turn the exposed stock round.

Un-chuck and flip the stock so the square part is exposed (the round part should be in the chuck and back into the spindle).

Turn the exposed end blunt. Remove the pin from the live center and bring up the tailstock with very light pressure.

Turn the exposed stock round and to the desired thickness (keep in mind that there will be a bit of sanding that will remove up to 1/16")

Back off the tailstock an inch or two and turn some more. Use the tailstock for support of the thin end. Don't apply any pressure with the tailstock.

Continue till the desired length of spindle is turned the way you wanted.

Sand , finish.

This is a fragile spindle and I will use a belt sander to remove the ends (the tailstock end is a little mushroom, the headstock is a little disc).

I generally use 4/4 stock for this but on occasion I have had 5/4 stock that I was able to cut in quarters and it worked fine.

I have turned tulipwood, cocobolo, ash, maple, lacewood, cherry, white oak, red oak, yellowheart, Brazilian cherry (this is brittle stuff so you have to take your time).

The perfect wood for knitting needles would be dogwood. Doogwood will work harden, so the more the needles are used the smoother the needles become.

For finish I use Shellawax. I doubt that finish would gold up very well to use. Looks great on a magic wand.

Re: thin spindles (long)

John Lucas

>Rick

That's the exact method I used to make a conductors baton that went from 1/4" to 1/8" over 11 or 12 inches. The only change I made was to make an wooden adaptor that fit my live center. This adaptor had an inverted cone about 1/4" deep. I would put the loose tip in this cone but not actually touching. This reduced the vibration of the loose end but didn't damage it.

Re: knitting needles

John K Jordan

>I make thin spindle turnings (wands for kids): I fit the stock between centers, turn a short taper on the one end, then remount the piece directly into the morse taper of the headstock. The taper is perhaps 5/8" long. The other end is supported by the tailstock. I find this provides good support while keeping the stock as short as possible. A chuck with pin jaws would also work, but it would not allow as much working room on that end.

When the turning is thin, I use the skew (1/2") in my right hand while cupping the shaft with the fingers of the left hand. I grip the steel of the skew and let the handle rest against my right forearm. My left thumb provides extra support for the skew or spindle gouge as necessary. The entire left hand moves along with the tool. You can turn very thin this way.

Just like sanding, you should need only a very light touch. If the wood gets hot against your fingers, you are using too much force!

I find the amount of tailstock pressure is important. I crank it harder at first to seat the stock in the morse taper, but then back off to a very light pressure. Sometimes I adjust the pressure while turning if I get too much vibration. Before mounting the stock, I also make small holes in the ends - this keeps the centers from splitting the wood.

If a mistake causes the thin shaft to go a bit out of true, I stop the lathe and tap one side to make it run true again. The tailstock supports the entire time until I part off (with the skew), first the tail end, then the head end while again supporting the shaft with my left hand. I clean up the ends as needed by hand with a knife or sand paper.

BTW, not needed for knitting needles, but with magic wands I might start with 3/4" or 1" stock but trim all but the handle area down to about 1/2" square on the bandsaw before turning. This saves a lot of time.

JKJ in East TN

Re: knitting needles

Barry

>Thanks for all the input. It's great to get so much feedback and good suggestions.

I'll try this weekend.