We made a jig this week that saved about 3 times the time it took to figure it out and construct it and will save many more frustrating hours in the future .... Whenever we have to turn something longer than our lathe can handle (36"), we have been setting up this complicated and intensely fussy drill press jig below ... It is impossible to set it up accurately without a bunch of test holes and test pieces and I just hate it. We were doing just one turning for a friend this week and someone was using the drill press, so I thought, now's the time ... It took about a half an hour and worked on the first try ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
The old set up on the drill press above ...
The new set up ... You've got to have a chuck that fits in your lathe drive shaft.. I used a regular 1.25" spade bit for these holes and turned an oak dowel to fit. Once you start, you can drill the whole depth of the spade bit if you want, which is about 3". The bits, with their tall straight sides and no lead screw just drill right in there if they are sharp ... I used the tail stock crank to push the stock onto the bit and by first mounting the stock on the regular drive center and tailstock dead center, I was able to locate the guide strips on either side of the stock before inserting the drill chuck ...
It was smoother drilling if I clamped the jig to the lathe ways before drilling ..
There's the tenon in there ...
Perfect alignment .... we made a stubby tenon that was just an inch longer than the hole was deep that fit nicely. The extra inch let us clamp the stub that stuck out in the vice to remove it after we finished turning and sanding ... Next time we'll do work like below with a jig like this ...
bed blog post here