Turning cap-sized nose cones
With a lathe it is easy to make your own nose cones. Even without a lathe, you can make your own: Find a way to glue a screw into a cut off bottle neck - the screw must sit as good as possible on-axis. The screw needs to stick out of the non-cap side - the cap side needs to be unobstructed for a cap to be screwed on. Then put this screw into your drilling machine and proceed as shown below.
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As material, I used a special sort of styropor called Styrodur. It is widely used in Germany to insulate houses. It is considerably harder than styropor. It can be cut easily with a knife. Lacking styrodur, any hard kind of styropor, which is usually white and often used for packaging, can be used as well. |
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Next, the raw form is cut. |
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Styrodur and Styropor can only be glued with special glues. I use UHU por, which smells like the rubber vulcanizing fluid used to repair bike tubes. The bottle cap is sanded, both surfaces are covered with a thin layer of glue. Wait a few minutes until dry, then press both parts forcefully. |
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A cut-off bottle neck is tightened in the three-jaw-chuck, the cap is screwed upon. Turning the styrodur with the cutting knife from above did not work well. Much better is coarse sanding paper - the Styrodur appears as soft as butter. |
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This animated gif shows the turning process. Fine sanding paper is used in the final step - this gives a nice smooth surface. |
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The first set of nose cones for bottle caps. |
You want to know how this nosecones perform? Click here!
Stand / Last Revision: 19.10.02