Memo to RTimmer: Before tapering masts, consider making a home made lathe.

Rather than spending big bucks for a lathe from a small tool catalog, I decided to manufacture my own lathe for the simple task of tapering a mast for a sailing ship model.

Using scrap wood, the bedway was constructed to hold a sliding tailstock that is lubricated with talcum power to enable the tailstock to slide easily on the bedway.

The wooden birch dowel that is to be tapered, is inserted into the drill chuck, making sure that extra length of the dowl is included, as the tighten chuck will schrunch the wood butt. This same end should become the top of the mast, as it will bear the most of the sanding effort. The other butt end, that will become the base of the mast, is held by the tailstock. This end is held in place by a small mail on the top of the tailstock, that is inserted into a dowl. As in the opposite end of the dowl, extra length is needed to accomadate a hole.This end should also be trimmed at the end of the operation to remove the hole.

Below the rotating dowel, a cardboard template is held in place. On this template is drawn an accurate representation of the mast. Every so often, a caliper is used to measure the diameter the the mast with the drawn mast on the template. I divide the template into four sections. Each sections of the mast is worked seperately.

In the photo, the drill is shown in full profile for this thread, which accounts for the slant of the dowel. In actual practice, the drill is held on its side by fastings to a support built on the bedway. I opperate the drill with a finger on my left hand, while I use sanding sticks held in my right hand. Every few moments, I stop the drill to check the progress of the sanded diameter on the dowel with a calipher.

Below the drill is a little drawer to hold sanding sticks, a drill chuck key and the calipher.