hutch nikita: A bevy of swifts. - Family Woodworking

I wasn't actually sure where to post this as it has flat work, hand work and spinny work

I generally don't have many projects interesting enough to share, I figured this one might be sort of amusing (even if its not up to the standards of some of y'all, we're all learning). Lots of fiddly little pieces anyway (32 pieces of wood per swift plus a couple dozen pieces of metal).

All done in oak (why oak? Because I have a lot of oak scraps, thats why ). Finished with 6 coats of wiping varnish and 2-3 coats of paste wax (depending on the part).

The whole crew. Why make one when 4 only take twice as long.

Close up showing how the yarn goes around it. Allows it to be unwound without tangling (in theory).

The top part. The knobby bit is just compression fit to the top of the shaft. The shaft here is stepped down and the spinny bit is has a stepped hole inside to match. Both the shaft and the spinny bit have metal bearing surfaces (made from filed-to-fit washers) where they make contact with each other.

This also shows how the arms are held to the spinny bits. Electrical wire in a groove and a little solder. There are actually 20 solder joints per swift including all of the arm-arm and arm-cross piece rings (so 80 solder joints in all).

The bottom of the spinning assembly. The collar slides up and down and is locked in place with the knob. The knob is just a block of wood epoxied around a bolt that was then ground to length (and smoothed on the end so it wouldn't chew up the shaft to fast). A threaded brass insert goes through the collar.

The clampy-to-the-table bits. Nothing super complicated, same idea on the knob as for the collar. The clamping piece just floats between two nuts (ground smooth and round) that are epoxied to the bolt. The upper nut is inset into the clamping piece to avoid overly marring the furniture.