I had to make bench dogs yesterday, so I turned wood for the first time. Up until now I have only turned metal and plastic.
This is probably blasphemy, but I used a quick change tool post with an HSS spooling tool on a 16" metal lathe.
Now that I have seen how useful this can be, I am wondering if I can get away with using this thing for wood regularly. I'm a little nervous about working close to the giant chuck, but I suppose there is a way to make it safe. I also have a Big Dog mini-lathe.
Turning wood using the cross slide is no problem, but it would be nice to be able to do stuff freehand. I am not really interested in things like furniture legs, but it would be useful to be able to do items like tool handles. The small lathe can do crude CNC, but that's not really woodturning.
Is it realistic to expect to be able to do this safely on these lathes? If so, can anyone point me to a good source of basic training so I don't kill myself?