Although this has nothing to do with woodworking, I hope someone can give me a lead . . . I’m restoring a brass candelabra. One of the little bowls is missing and I need to have it duplicated. I can’t find any service near me (north- Central Florida) who can handle this. It’s a very small brass turning job. (Pics attached) Does anyone know of a service I can send this sample to and have it replicated? Or other suggestion? Thanks, Rich BTW this is my first time on the Forum in a few weeks. This new format is rather disorienting.
Replies
Just a suggestion .Try looking for a model engineering club,trains ,boats, traction engines etc.Most of their members could help
Those look much like standard lamp parts. Some people used to make pipes out of them in the old days. :)
Dennis,
Interesting.
My dad made the candelabra, a chanukah menorah , more than 60 years ago. The body is from a flat plate of brass and is quite obviously hand worked. There's a typical hand-wrought look to it.
I never thought too much about it over the years, but the little bowls are perfectly uniform replicas of each other - too uniform to look hand made, even if a template was carefully used at the lathe.
The base, now that I examine it, looks cast and polished, not turned. And it certainly does look like a standard lamp base.
I had always assumed he had made the entire thing, including turning the bowls on a lathe.
I'll never know. But it's no less a treasure. And the missing bowl, if I can get it turned, will now certainly be hand-made.
I've tried to attach a picture of the other parts, but I can't find an option for attachments in this reply section. If I can upload an attachment after sending this I will.
Rich
Here's an example of a lamp
Here's an example of a lamp part.
http://www.grandbrass.com/catalog.cfm?category=Cups&subcategory=Turned%20Cups&STARTROW=7&ANAME=top
Dennis,
Thanks for the lamp part example. Your suggestion that it looked like a lamp part certainly turned on a light bulb here (pun intended) and I immediately started searching lamp manufacturing sites. I've left emails with several to see if I can get a "one-off" part made through them. No replies yet.
Everyone, thanks for all the suggestions. I'll pursue all. I'll be very surprised if I can't locate a machinist somewhere to do this little task. This is a very personal project that I'm determined to finish. If I have to, I'll get a small metal-working lathe and do it myself.
Rich
Nope,
No way to add an attachment in a reply. (bug?) But I was able to edit my original post and add another image to show the body and base.
Rich
Yould that be back in the very early 1960's? I think I saw you at Woodstock...
And those pipes would be used to smoke...what?
Rich, if there's an AAW
Rich, if there's an AAW chapter near you [woodturner.org], get ahold of them and find out who does metal spinning. If that doesn't work, try posting over at Sawmill Creek in the woodturning forum (or I will if you don't want to register -- takes your "real name" to do so).
Having that duplicated probably won't be cheap, but should be gratifying.
Having that duplicated probably won't be cheap..
Not exactly true,, I would bring a hunk of brass and tell a 'turner'.. BET YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS!
Not many clubs around my neck of the woods anymore but when there was, I could get anything made if I made it a challenge and supplied the materials AND offered a round of free beer to all...
I miss the REALLY nice folks at the local use-to-be clubs...
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I left another message, but the forum software put it out of chronological order (since I directed it to Dennis, it was put right after his first reply).
Rich
I'm Don. :)
I'm Don. :)
Don, you little devil you. Are you purposely inserting several lines of "white space" just to make a point with the IT folk?
Rofl!
It started doing it when the forum changed. I haven't altered anything.
Oops.
Sorry Don!
Actually a machinist would have some problems with that, metal lathes are set up to create straight cuts and square shoulders, even simple tapers on a metal lathe require quite a bit of extra work.
To make a complex curved part like that as a one of kind, the basic roughing out would be done conventionally on a metal lathe, but the curves would then be worked with a tool rest and turning tools the same as turning wood.
Thanks John,
I finally got a response from a machine shop. $350 to produce the first one. (I only need one). They didn't say how much additional "copies" would be, but said that most of the charge was in the initial set up.
That's quite a bit higher than I thought it would be. I figured it might cost $100-125.
For not a whole lot more than that quote, I could get a small metal lathe and enough tooling to do the job. Hmmm.
Rich
A modern machine shop would would scan the part in three dimensions on an expensive machine that does only that function. The information would be used to create a computer file that would then be used to create a program to run a computer guided lathe, the operator would just watch the lathe work. All of the steps and high tech machines explain why the first part would cost $350.00, after that they could probably make copies in under 5 minutes a piece.
An old fashioned machine shop would just hand the part to a good lathe operator who had experience doing freehand turning, admittedly a rare skill, and an hour later the piece would be made for the price you had in mind.
John
"An old fashioned machine shop would just hand the part to a good lathe operator who had experience doing freehand turning, admittedly a rare skill, and an hour later the piece would be made for the price you had in mind."
Uh, huh. Where do I find him?
(I will, eventually, one way or another, and the guy may just turn out to be me! There's no rush and I would love to be able to justify acquiring a new piece of equipment.)
The modern machine shop guys are just sitting around, looking at their CAM computers. There is no work in the shop. This area is DEAD. It's one thing to charge those kind of prices if one's equipment is busy full time churning out profit and customers are waiting in line just to buy time on the machine. But when it's idle all day, one needs to realize the pricing structure needs adjustment.
Rich
Part of the price comes from the fact that if they don't already have the material lying around, they can't just order the couple inches they need they need for your job. They have to buy a foot, which in the diameter you need I just sourced for around 50 bucks. Plus shipping. Plus the administrative cost of ordering it. Then they pay a good machinist $25-30 for an hour of his time to make it. At the price you wanted, they'd be doing good to make 20 bucks on the job.
And don't take my following post to John to mean it isn't a tricky part; it is. I see either several form tools to grind and a mandrel to make, or a lot of filing to do.
Looks like it'd be a fun part to do for a guy with a hobby machine shop in his garage; you don't know any of those, do you?
Pek,
Here's a source for 1"
Pek,
Here's a source for 1" brass rod per foot at $2.36.
http://www.speedymetals.com/pc-2134-8199-1-rd-ca-360-brass.aspx
Rich
Check your source again, Rich... That's $2.36 per inch, about $25 for a foot. Alot better than McMaster-Carr, which is who I checked out of habit, but nonetheless...
Of course, the material price means nothing if you happen to chance upon a shop that has some brass laying around. Maybe check with a shop that does a lot of marine work.
FWIW, I agree with you that $350 is pretty high. To me it sounds like either an "I need the rent" price or a "go away" price.
pek,
Sorry. I meant to write per inch. The point I was making was that they sell by the inch. So even if a shop has no stock that size on hand, the material cost is insignificant.
Rich
Rich , get a hold of Philip Marcou , maker of the Marcou planes . I am prety sure he would help you out , look his profile up and send him a message .
good luck dusty
dusty,
I immediately thought of Philip when I posted this. But I wouldn't think of prevailing on him for something like this.
But if he DID respond, I could say I have a Marcou product!
Rich
John, I've read a lot of your
John, I've read a lot of your material on this site and respect your knowledge and skills a great deal. That said, what on earth are you talking about? Simple tapers a lot of extra work? I can cut any taper you want up to three inches long by loosening two bolts, swiveling my compound, tightening them up again, and cutting with the topslide.
Tapers longer than that I cut with my taper attatchment or by offsetting the tailstock, takes a few minutes.
And fillets, corner radii, even full hemispheres are cut all the time on manual metal lathes in a variety of different ways. Ball turning attachments are not uncommon pieces of tooling, but you don't even need one of those if you can grind form tools, which for wide-open-tolerance decorative stuff like the OP's part you can do on a pedestal grinder if you have to.
I'll grant you touching up the radii with a file, but a tool rest and turning tools like turning wood? Have you been doing this? Because as a machinist I take exception to the technique. Nowhere in all my reference material dating back to 1910 do I find any mention of anyone ever doing it that way. I believe it would be not only unsafe, but next to impossible to achieve anything approaching an acceptable finish. Metal turning tools require rigidity that your hands just can't provide. I strongly encourage the OP, should he choose to pursue buying a lathe and doing it himself, not to try it.
I post this with all due respect to your considerable standing.
John Allen
I have just read all the posts on this question: in a nut shell it is a very simple job for anyone with some time, the inclination , the brass (not cheek ☺), and a small metal turning lathe. In other words not a job for a professional shop, equipped with cnc stuff or not , that needs to make time pay-unless the op wants a few thousand of those parts in which case the method(s) used would be entirely different.
He needs to find a model engineer type guy who will enjoy doing the job.
I don't fit the above bill but would churn one of those out in less than an hour using straight left and right tools, a round nose or two, an internal tool, a parting tool and a file to complete the beads etc. If I had to do several, all exactly the same then I would grind up one or two form tools, which work beautifully on brass.
A simple set of HSS lathe tools like the one pictured would be fine, especiaslly as one can grind them to suit particular jobs.
Well I would habve liked to post the picture-but see no means of doing it-is this a temporary bug or am I missing something????
Thanks Philip.
There does seem to be a bug in the "new and improved" forum software which prevents posting an image in any message reply. Only the original posting has image capability.
I am waiting for several replies from several machine shops of varying sizes. The only quote I have gotten so far is very high, but I may decide to go with it as the emotional/sentimental value of this project is priceless.
There's a lot of other work to do on the piece including brazing which I'm almost finished. Then a lot of polishing. For $500-600 USD I could have a small metal lathe and more than enough tooling to do the job. Then I would also have the lathe and the satisfaction that I had accomplished the entire restoration myself.
I can see it now. If I get the lathe, how could I not also get a mill-drill or a small mill? Then I could subcontract out parts to guys who do crazy things like make magnificent hand planes!
Hey, I could make them myself!
Rich
If you can't find a job shop
If you can't find a job shop to do the work try a tech high school or adult job training center. You could also look in the back of a hoby machinist magazine for a source.
Dan
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled