Not only does it look very atmospheric, it is also extremely useful: a light source inside a wooden hat clamped into the lathe enables the correct wall thickness to be reliably assessed when the upper part of the hat is finished turning, which can hardly be measured otherwise. But how do you get the light into the rotating hat? The solution: making a light lining!
A wooden body is required for the light lining, which can also be glued together from smaller pieces of wood. To attach it to the lathe spindle, I provided it with the appropriate spindle thread (see "Wooden thread - application examples" section: "Spindle thread M33x3.5"). If this option is not available, you must screw the wooden body onto a small face plate. The circumference of the wooden body is turned slightly conically so that the smallest and largest diameters correspond to the smallest and largest possible hat size. Then I turned out the chuck body in a parabolic mirror-like manner. (A little "warmup" for hat turning with the shell tube!) A through hole for the cable entry and screwed-in bearing shell for a ball bearing complete the chuck body. Some woodturners have padded the peripheral surface with leather or neoprene. So far I have avoided this and put my hat directly on the wood. In my opinion, this has the advantage that the hat swings less when finished turning, but of course also the disadvantage that it may be very difficult to remove again.
For safety reasons, I chose a low voltage 12V, 50W halogen lamp to build the light source. The connection cable, which must be led through the hollow spindle, is guided in a protective tube (10mm aluminum). I attached a suitable ball bearing to one end of the tube and attached the lamp holder. The tube must then be secured against rotation in a suitable manner on the back of the headstock (see photo!).
I attached the required power supply to the lathe with two small clamps so that the power switch is easy to reach. The heat generated by the lamp is quite considerable in the small, closed cavity; That's why I only turn it on briefly for checking purposes.
P.S.: I'm excited to see when the first Schildbürger contacts me and asks whether I can carry lights into the town hall with my hat!
Extratipp:
What is the best way to connect the lamp cable to the low voltage power supply? Banana plugs are difficult to thread through the spindle hole and a terminal block is quite difficult to handle! My suggested solution: The Wago company has a useful combination of Wago clamp and banana plug in its range (see photo), which solves the problem excellently!