Final Turning

At this point, the tamper is taking shape -- the barrel has already been turned to size, and the cap is fully assembled.  The remaining step is to turn the cap down to size.

Unlike the barrel, the cap contains trim pieces that are not round.  Fortunately, this isn't a significant concern for the lathe -- the trim materials are generally soft enough that the lathe cutter can remove square edges as it goes.

The procedure is straightforward: I screw the cap into the barrel and chuck the foot of the tamper into the headstock chuck.  I use a live center to support the cap end of the tamper, and a right-hand tool to cut away the brass, micarta and wood from the cap.  My goal is to get the diameter of the cap to approximately the same size as the barrel -- it doesn't have to be exact, because I'm going to sand everything later.

This picture shows the cap being turned down to size:

Note that I'm cutting away the micarta and brass, and haven't worked my way down to the wood yet.

Once I've turned the cap down to the proper diameter, I use the bandsaw to cut the end off the cap.  This is necessary because the cap still has the small hole that I made for the live center to fit into.

At this point, construction of the tamper is complete.  What remains is sanding and finishing.

Next: Sanding

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Last modified: 12/08/02