belaying pins and deadeyes

[Bernadette]

i want to get my belaying pins and deadeyes turned up at some stage. just recently i took some timber stock to the local woodworking club to get them to turn the pins. they said they could do the job and i even gave them a template pin to work by/with. well that was a big mistake. every pin they did was different! and some were just downright awful.

so im looking for someone who has either got a laser lathe or a lathe that can follow or track my template pin to produce 8 or so pins of EXACT size and shape. same for the deadeyes.
can anyone help?

[BarnacleGrim]

Surely you don't need laser precision for belaying pins?

A piece of scrap ply cut with a jigsaw should make a perfectly good template, hold it against the piece and you'll see the high spots.

[PeterSibley]

Cast ones are good , they don't rot .

[Bernadette]

too heavy peter and i dont see how a belaying pin would ever rot!

[Thorne]

Could it have been the wood - uneven hardness or ?? In my very limited experience turning small belaying pins, it is pretty easy to get 'em right by constantly checking the pattern piece, but I only turned 'em from very clean/smooth mahogany and white oak.

[paladin]

Sorry we're so far apart...I made a couple/three dozen, turned teak handles with 3/8ths diameter bronze pin in the middle. Work absolutely great, just enough weight to keep them in the pin rails unaided.

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

A copy lathe will do a reasonable job of making same-size belaying pins. That's how we make ours. Traditional fittings are, after all, traditionally made -- which means, basically, by hand. Using a lathe doesn't change that.

Therefore I think it's unrealistic to expect lathe-turned pins to be absolutely identical. But if you want absolutely identical items, then the only way I know of getting them would be by using a computer-controlled machine.

Deadeyes are more difficult items altogether. Ones we've made have been turned on a special jig in a special lathe, and frankly, after our last experience (in sending a full shipset, with straps, to California) I don't look forward to getting another order for them.

So I guess you need to pay your money and take your choice.

Mike

[wizbang 13]

The pins going to race each other in the Olympics?

[gazzer]

Most hand turned items are going to be slightly different, but with a good template showing diameters, transitions, and other features, it isn't that hard to be relatively consistent. This club must have used your project as a student exercise. Some wood types certainly make it easier, but even a perfect piece will change shape slightly with changes in humidity. What sort of tolerances are you after? Also, what type of wood are you using

The few that I turned in the far past were pretty much by eye. I have a half dozen to do in a few months so I think I will put the calipers on them when they are all done and then grade myself.

-G