Metal Spinning | American Association of Woodturners

Well I got into it but then got married and moved and had to spend almost a year getting the shop back up and running. So what I'm saying is it's almost like starting new. I will try to answer questions. There are two guys who do it a lot and I'll try to remember their names. Probably hit me about 2am when I wake up in the middle of the night. I took a class with David Marks and had a ball. I apparently had a good touch and took to it pretty fast. About half the class or more wrinkled up their first few vessels. by the end of the weekend we all were doing pretty well. I made my own tools. I don't really know where to buy them right now. Penn State Ind. was selling tools and materials for a while but they quit. Oneway sells a metal spinning tool rest. I built my own for that also. I will have to do some more research to find other metal spinning resources. There is an excellent DVD listed online. I"ve never purchased it but heard a lot of good things.
there are also some pretty good youtube videos although many of them are too professional for most of us. Mike, can you give us an idea of what you want to spin? Size, material, etc, etc.

In general, you'll want annealed material which is sometimes not so easy to find in small quantities. Possibly, a method of annealing if working with material that tends to work harden. Copper alloys will need a pickling solution to remove heat scale after annealing.

Tools,... you can make those yourself. The lathe will need a tool rest with pivot pin holes, again a DIY item.

I would say becoming proficient at metal spinning is a bit more challenging than wood turning. Doug,

One of the items I will be forming will be metal spheres in various sizes. 4" thru 12" diameters
Intend to use aluminum and copper metal mostly. I located some 4 foot steel pry bars that
can easily be worked into spinning tools. One end is tapered to a point the opposite end has a
curved flat duck bill. A little work with a grinder and should have a usable tool. I have some carbide
cutting tools for my metal lathe that I can braze or weld onto another steel bar for a trimming tool.

Doug,

One of the items I will be forming will be metal spheres in various sizes. 4" thru 12" diameters
Intend to use aluminum and copper metal mostly. I located some 4 foot steel pry bars that
can easily be worked into spinning tools. One end is tapered to a point the opposite end has a
curved flat duck bill. A little work with a grinder and should have a usable tool. I have some carbide
cutting tools for my metal lathe that I can braze or weld onto another steel bar for a trimming tool.

Mike, not to spoil all your fun, but.........

http://www.necopperworks.com/copperballs.html

A 4" ball is $29. Buying the material at onlinemetals.com a 12" x 12" piece of dead soft .040" copper is $24. So about $12 in materials per 4" ball, using two 6 x 6" pieces. Doug,

I have a supply of copper and aluminum sheet metal for this project already. The spheres need to be made to a specific diameter to fit the intended application. I am sure I could have someone make them but I would need to pay for the mandrel forms for each specific size which I intend to make myself. Once I get all of my mandrels made I might look at jobbing it out, but the market I work in has a limited volume of business. I have a few other items besides the spheres that I also want to spin. I also have a couple of Tesla coils that I would like to finish one of these years with a custom made toroid.

Paul,

Most of the retail tools sold for spinning are somewhat undersized for the abuse these tools take when spinning the bigger items and harder metals. I already have a metal spinning tool rest for my lathe I intend to use for my metal spinning.

John,

I have access to a full equipped metal fabrication and tool shop at my day job. I can heat treat and weld just about any kind of metal there. I can turn some metal rollers on my metal lathe for the more complex beading and roller tools and set them up on a tool shaft and handle. The tools I am making will be about 4 foot long with the handles when done.

Some spinners use copper sheeting from the lumber yards that are used for gutter and flashing applications.

You have to be very aware of thickness when you compare prices and buy. Online's price I mentioned for dead soft C110 copper was .040" thick (the thinnest they sell in 0 temper). Roofers copper from Online Metals in .043" thickness is even more expensive for the 12" square.

A friend who works exclusively in copper tells me Online's prices are about 3 times what he pays in volume purchases. Places like Online are the only place to buy small quantities though.

I believe typical roofers copper at lumberyards would be .021" thick, know as 16 oz. Probably half hard so might need annealing prior to spinning and mighty be too thin (depending on the spinner's experience of course).

Copper is expensive wherever you buy.

Anyone on the site using their wood lathe for spinning metal? I have several jobs coming up where I need to spin some metal parts. Looking for any resources that may be available tools and materials etc.

I’ve done a bit of metal spinning, just a few pieces, and made my own spinning tools and toolrest, used copper as it is easy to soften and I had/have some copper sheeting, so never had to buy any.

The sheets I used came from an pressure-less water heater that had started to leak at the seams, for the rim fold over I just two tools at the same times to hold and raise the edge and then roll back.

A skew works just fine for trimming the edge.

If you can turn the forms from hard wood the rest isn’t that hard to do, even if you have to anneal the metal more than once to get there.

These are nothing special, just some of what I made,
The professional spinner that i met one time used an Oak stick as a back up especially on larger platters. I set up a demo for club. He was turning the lower half of the Kerosene well on an Aladan's kerosene lamp. It literally took him about 30 seconds or less. After he finished he said does anyone want to see it again. We said yes because we didn't see it the first time. The scary part was he chained himself to the lathe and used his whole body to swing the tool. These were about 12" discs when he started and ended up being about an 8" bowl with a lip. He would turn two of these and put them together by spinning epoxy into the joint. That was the reservoir for the kerosene for those lamps.

Hi

I am trying to spin some 2mm soft grade aluminium (it's the only thickness I can get in the right grade). I am using a mild steel rod as the spinning tool. I am a spinning newbie.


My spinning fails because the metal gets thinner and thinner as I work towards the headstock. I can't tell how thick the metal is until there isn't any.
I have tried to spin this shape twice with the same results. I am sure my technique is faulty, but I am not sure how to do it right.


I have found that I can't attach images to a new post. I can attach images to a reply to a post. Using loosy goosy terminology

You are putting HUGE tension in the plate as you try to pull/ push it down.
For a "deep draw" do not go directly from a flat plate to a cylinder.

Using appropriate anneals in between as needed - -
I would also be tempted to rig an angular contact bearing set into an X set up in a roller fork.
This will provide a lot of "lean and push" without galling the aluminum.

Go from a flat plate to a begining cyl, (kinda like a dinner plate) then stop the cyl and form the rest of the flat plate into a deep coolie hat.

Go from the hat to a bit more cyl and then form all the rest of the hat into a flower pot

Go from the pot to a cylinder in steps, drawing the pot out again as the step's radial change gets larger.

Hth Ag Are you working the tool in and out?If you only start at the inside and work out you will get exactly what you have.You need to alternate with working in from the outside to the middle.
It`s hard to explain without a sketch but you sort of sweep the metal forward coming out the way but on the way back in you start the stroke about half way in and don`t try to take the metal further up the mandrel but rather push the material you had pushed forward on the out stroke down on to the mandrel.
Other problem is that you can only spin down to a certain internal angle before you move in to the flow forming range.You look as though you may be close to it.
Many years ago I had Boko semi automatic spinning lathes.It took nearly a year of trial and error before I got anything worthwhile out of them.Spinning in the UK is a closed shop and Boko`s trainer always has a waiting list of about a year for his time. I have done and continue to do my share of metal spinning. I'll see if I can help you. Here are a few tips:

1. Spin only or aluminum alloys. Many alloys will not be up to the stresses of spinning. Forget .
2. For the size you are spinning a steel tool (5/8" - 3/4" in diameter) with a tapering point will easily lock the metal on to the chuck.
3. For the rest of the spinning use a combination tool (same diameter). The combo tool has a slightly rounded flat end. Use this tool's flat side to form a funnel shape. Now and then flip the tool over and move some metal with the round side.
4. Most of the tool movement needs to be from the rim towards the center to avoid stretching the metal. Keep the funnel shape as you bring the metal to the chuck.
5. Lube lightly but often. Trim the rim when it gets lop sided.
6. With your shape you might need to slightly taper the chuck body to make removal of the final object much easier.

Good luck.
Jim use a breakdown tool

Here are photos of the my attempts.

another way you can go about this is maybe try using a smaller blank size,
and if that dose not work try spinning the part first on a larger size tool then you use the tool you are using to finninsh the part. Thanks for the advice.

I have made a wheeled spinning tool using a skateboard wheel, but it wasn't that good. The bearings used were rubbish. Better ones would improve the tool.

My problem seems to have been that I stretched the metal too much because I was working too much from in to outside edge, and I had the wrong shape (bell instead of funnel).

I am using butter soft metal that isn't work hardening by much right up to failure.

The chuck has a 1 degree taper to allow the work to release.

I will try again:
using a flatter forming tool,
aiming for a funnel/cooly hat shape,
working much more from the outside to the inside.

I still have no way of meauring metal thickness to see if I am moving the metal to the right place.