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Topic: Modify steel guitar bars |
Len Amaral
From:
Rehoboth,MA 02769
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 11:18 am |
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| I have several steel guitar bars I would like to experiment with and shorten. I have a lathe but concerned with damaging the finish. Any suggestions? |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 11:41 am Lathe
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I don't know what kind of lathe you have, but if you want to hold the bar securely and not damage the surface, I would machine a collet to hold the bar or buy an off the shelf collet.
You could take a piece of round stock, say brass or aluminum, and drill a 3/4 inch hole through the center. Mount the piece in your lathe and with a boring bar enlarge the hole to precisely fit your bar -- suction fit. Slit the stock from the outside to the bar hole -- sort of an expansion/contraction relief cut -- so when you replace the piece back in your lathe the tightening jaws will tighten the precise hole you have bored for your bar. This will act like a makeshift collet and give you an even,not marring grip on your polished bar.
Chris Lucker, the seat of the pants machinist. |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 12:18 pm Bar holder
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I guess the easiest way to explain what I wrote above it is to think in terms of a collet or a split sleeve.
Chris |
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Ron !
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 12:56 pm
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A split sleeve is the best way to go.I made several bars.From sitar bars to regular.Remember..........some bars are chrome plated and if you don't use enough rpm on your lath it will chip of.
Ron |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 12:59 pm
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You might be better off making your own. You see, if you cut off a bar that's chrome plated, the chrome may soon begin to flake off where the underlying metals are exposed. The chrome is corrosion resistant, the copper and nickle underneath the chrome aren't. 
It would be fine on a stainless-steel bar, though! |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 2 Mar 2007 6:17 pm
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| And if the bar has been hardened, it will be a more interesting cut. Collets are good or a 6-jaw chuck should be ok. |
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Chris Lucker
From:
Los Angeles, California USA
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Posted 5 Mar 2007 11:58 am
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Chas is right -- I remember one time machining an 0.625 end for a pulley and a keyway on a 1.00" piece of stainless shaft material. Turns out it was hardened. After watching a carbide cutter end disappear my real machinest friend, whose big Logan Lathe I was using, said "Thanks alot!"
Chris |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 5 Mar 2007 12:58 pm
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| Chris Lucker wrote: |
| ...my real machinest friend, whose big Logan Lathe I was using, said "Thanks alot!"... |
Wasn't Ernest Tubb, was it?  |
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