Limited use Lathe and four tools?

[Mike Holbrook]

I just got back from a chair making class at Country Workshops. I had never turned anything and was surprised to find myself turning! The course instructor, who is hand tool oriented, felt that the accuracy and speed turning tapered mortises was worth reserving a spot for a lathe, even in a hand tool shop. Long story short I am thinking about investing in a small lathe and four shaping tools: roughing gouge, detail gouge, diamond parting tool and a oval skew.

I am more interested in hand tools and would probably make bowls with hand tools. I am interested in turning fairly simple chair legs, chair rungs, tool handles, tapered & straight tenons, maybe table legs....
Any suggestions on models, features etc., used gear....would be appreciated.

[Thom Sturgill]

If you are truely into hand tools consider building a treadle lathe. They are low speed, so the parts are not critical and the ways can be built of wood. Being low speed HHS is not needed for the tools - carbon steel will work fine.

If you do want powered there are many options depending on how deep your pockets are. For example this
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Lathe from Grizzly has a 46" center to center bed and sells for about $600. It has a high bottom speed (600rpm) which is not a problem for spindle only work but IS too high for most bowl work.

Penn State Industries sell a relatively good line of tools called 'Benjamins Best', they are moderately priced but seem to be of decent quality. Thompson Lathe Tools and D-Way are generally accepted as being about the best. I am not sure that I would recommend an oval skew, I greatly prefer a flat skew with a rolled edge like this one from Packard tools, who carries a wide range of turning tools.

Ohh, and get ready to say bye to any extra cash as you get pulled into the Vortex we call wood turning...

[Dennis Ford]

A Rikon midi with a bed extension would do the job, if you want to spend more; that would be easy.

[Lee Reep]

A Rikon midi with a bed extension would do the job, if you want to spend more; that would be easy.

This is what I bought as my starter lathe (model 70-100). Great lathe, and Woodcraft does put them on sale periodically (via the 10% off sale, or via a special Rikon sale). After using it for 5 years, I am still happy with it.

Anything longer than a pen, and you will want the bed extension.

[Lee Reep]

I am interested in turning fairly simple chair legs, chair rungs, tool handles, tapered & straight tenons, maybe table legs....

Tool handles! I love turning tool handles!

Here are a couple. The first is some reversible screwdrivers (Dremel off the plastic handle of inexpensive ones from Home Depot or Harbor Freight). The second/third picture is a handle I turned for a bowl gouge I bought.

screwdrivers.jpgbowl-gouge2.jpgbowl-gouge1.jpg

[Michelle Rich]

I taught myself to turn on a homemade springpole lathe. She was no beauty, but she worked. You can make your own. Or today if you require electric one, and you have no desire to turn huge bowls..any 12" capacity lathe will be more than sufficient.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I have been reading here and doing a little research on lathes and turning tools. I have a couple CBN wheels so I do have the ability to grind/sharpen these tools. I am starting to think about investing a little more money in a lathe and basic tools. I plan to make a good number of chairs and I make walking sticks/shepherd's crooks and tool handles for my business and work. I would like to be able to turn table legs too,

I investigated a spring pole or treadle lathe when I was at Country Workshops with Drew Langsner last week and decided that was not the route I want to take. I have too many projects I want to get done to add another one to the list just to get to the actual work I want to be doing.

Talking with Drew last week, he suggests and uses lathes with 40" capacity. A mini might handle a fair amount of the work but many of the pieces are 20" or a little over. So I am looking at either buying a lathe with smaller capacity like a Jet 1221VS or stepping up to something that comes with a large enough capacity like the Jet 1440VS. It looks like I could save a little money going with the smaller model but I would need a bed extension...In the around $1200 area I also see a Teknatool Nova 1624-44 wood lathe with a 1.5 hp motor and a 24" capacity??? I'm not sure which of the features these lathes offer might be imprtant to me?

[Thom Sturgill]

Mike my first lathe was a Jet 1220. I bought the bed extension but have rarely used it. For long spindles you will definitely need to rig up a spindle steady, but it will not need to be as beefy as some of the big steady rests that you see for hollow forms. I see you are in Milford North of Atlanta. In mid May there is a woodturning symposium over in Cartersville. That will really spark your interest.

A short Midi with extension that could be easily removed could also allow for bowl turning and hollow forms up to the 10-12" capacity. Otherwise, if you think you might be interested, get a lathe with a sliding head like the Jet 1642, or rotating like the Jet 1440. The 1440 is mechanical VS not electrical and the relatively high low end speed, while no problem for spindles, can be an issue for bowls with their larger diameter. The Grizzly I linked to above is pretty much a clone of the older Jet 1440 I believe.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thom, I am in Milton, GA, which may not show up on a map as it is a new city in north metro Atlanta. Is there a name for the woodturning event that I can look up? I am not entirely sure what sliding or rotating heads are used for? I am guessing from the info. I have read on various machines that they position work such that the distance to the base is no longer a limiting factor for wide items like bowls. It seems that there are other "attachments" that may be necessary to use this sort of head though?

My shop has spread out into parts of three rooms and I am afraid to garner more space. Sooner or later the wife is bound to notice right. So I am trying to keep the foot print of any sizable tool as small as possible. I also see that most of these lathes can either be attached to an existing table top or bought with some sort of stand. I want/need other cabinet space and I might want to build a combination enclosure/tool storage cabinet to hold the lathe and tools. Unless there is some reason not to make my own? I can make a 4x4 base/frame or whatever is necessary to make the whole thing stable.

I am seeing motors ranging from 1/2 to 1 3/4-2 hp on the medium to small lathes. I imagine larger is better? I am a little foggy on the extension vs spindle steady that Thom mentions. Is there some way to work a spindle longer than the capacity of the lathe without a bed extension? I think the mechanical VS (variable speed) means one would have to move a belt etc. to vary the speed? I guess the electrical VS can be set for different speeds with a dial or buttons? I know there are different mechanisms/chucks for holding the work in place. I think the standard system uses a tapered shaft that can just be taped out of its hole. I believe there are some that have at least one fixed unit, usually the one next to the motor, that is not removable. I see lots of recommendations for using a Teknatool SuperNova 2 chuck, which looks interesting in the pictures. I am not sure how it holds wood in place though or what would make it better/worse than some other type of chuck?

Sorry I know I have lots of questions, but better to understand what I am getting into now I think than later.

[Thom Sturgill]

http://www.southernstatessymposium.org is the website for that symposium.

OK I will try to address your issues:

Extension and spindle steady are separate things. The extension extends the bed allowing the tailstock to move further from the headstock. I can turn a 56" long spindle on my 1220 with the extionion installed. With long spindles you can get flex in the center and the spindle starts whipping. I had this problem when turning a cane once. A spindle steady is an arrangement, usually of wheels but could even be string, that stabilizes the turning to prevent whipping.

Mechanical VS uses a pulley that spreads apart to change the effective diameter and thus the speed. Electronic Variable speed typically changes the frequency of the current to change the motors operation. Both are infinitely variable. The third option is stepper pulleys where you change the speed by moving the belt. Just to make it more confusing, most EVS systems also use stepper pulleys to create speed ranges and maintain torque at low speeds.

The tapered shaft (Morris Taper) is used on many machines. If you own a drill press the chuck is probably on the end of a MT adapter. Wood lathes can use either MT2 or MT1 (smaller) and sometimes both. For spindle work typically a drive center is used to drive the wood from the headstock. This can be a spur center, a safe center, a steb center, etc. that fits into a taper hole in the headstocks spindle which is also threaded to receive various alternate attachments like a faceplate and chuck. Smaller lathes typically have 1" diameter threads.

A 'live' center is usually used in the tailstock. It is 'live' because it uses bearings to allow it to spin freely as opposed to a dead center which is just a solid piece of steel with a taper on one end and a point on the other. These are mostly used in metal turning.

Chucks are not needed for spindle work but are nice to have for bowls etc. They thread on the end of the drive spindle and grip the wood in moveable jaws much like the Jacobs chuck in a drill press grips a drill bit.

As to motor size. Typically yes, larger is better in that it allows you to turn large items. Again for spindle work, not too big a deal. A smaller motor or the right type of drive center, will allow the user to grab a rotating spindle and stop it. That would be dangerous if the pice were held in a chuck and driven by a 1 1/2HP motor. A smaller motor, allowing that it can spin the timber, just means taking lighter cuts.

I suggest you spend some time on You-tube, there are several good tutorials out there.
Woodturning 101 Capt Eddie also check out the next video on work holding.
Woodturning for Beginners - the lathe

[Mike Holbrook]

Thom thanks for taking the time to answer my many questions, much appreciated. I put the symposium on my calendar and will try to get there. I also watched all the videos you suggested and several more basic lathe/turning videos on YouTube.

My home is surrounded by a large supply of many of the popular green woodworking trees. The large creek, hill and marsh area results in trees coming down as a result of natural causes on a regular basis. I have 4-6 I could harvest wood from now. These trees often fall over with some of the roots still in the ground, so the trunks may live on for quite a while. The ones that fall in the creek often just start growing where they fall as water is no issue. I am looking for ways to use this constant large supply of green wood.

I am thinking about buying a little larger machine that could handle bowls as well as "spindles". In the windsor chair world I find the term spindles more frequently used to refer to thin pieces in the back/sides of a chair, between the seat and arm bow/arm rest. I make chair spindles with a drawknife and spokeshave. With the hand tools one can remove layers of wood, much like removing a few sheets at a time from a stack of paper. My initial interest in turning is to make chair legs and any rungs running between the legs.

Windsor chair legs are usually made from maple, significantly thicker than the spindles composing the back of the chair. I mention this information as the chair legs I am measuring are usually 24" or less, even in raw form. The "spindles" I make are frequently longer than 24". This information seems important to me in choosing a lathe. There are "midi" lathes that can turn 24" pieces without an extension, although many have a max capacity of more like 16.5". Apparently Thom and others who have bought extensions for smaller lathes ended up not using them very much. It sounds like these people ended up buying a larger lathe instead of having to add and remove an extension. I am wondering if a Midi like the Nova 1624-44, with its larger capacity: 24" between centers, 16" onboard, 29" outboard (due to swiveling head) might be a good option for me?

[Michelle Rich]

windsor chairs have short spindles ..everything goes into the seat. so a large lathe is not necessary. a 29 inch outboard has no use at all. Y0ur back spindles will be much stronger if they are rived from straight grained wood and then spokeshaved..no lathe work there.
What I am hearing you say in this post is changing your mind as you go. If you want bowls, well then, that changes the equation..how big you want them is the concern. I have had a Nova 3000 for over 20 yrs, and I do use the outboard 29 ", but the lathe is rather light, and running much weight swung out away from the lathe mass is tricky. And seriously, where does one put a 27" bowl? So, if I were you, I'd seriously figure out exactly what I want & then buy the lathe that will do that. 12", 16" ?? up to you

[Thom Sturgill]

windsor chairs have short spindles ..everything goes into the seat. so a large lathe is not necessary. a 29 inch outboard has no use at all. Y0ur back spindles will be much stronger if they are rived from straight grained wood and then spokeshaved..no lathe work there.
What I am hearing you say in this post is changing your mind as you go. If you want bowls, well then, that changes the equation..how big you want them is the concern. I have had a Nova 3000 for over 20 yrs, and I do use the outboard 29 ", but the lathe is rather light, and running much weight swung out away from the lathe mass is tricky. And seriously, where does one put a 27" bowl? So, if I were you, I'd seriously figure out exactly what I want & then buy the lathe that will do that. 12", 16" ?? up to you

Exactly! Lathes tend to fall into three categories - spindle, general, and bowl lathes and it helps to know what you really want to do.

A dedicated spindle lathe is longer bedded with high rotational speed and modest torque and a smaller turning radius of 10-12" (except for architectural spindle lathes which need to turn columns).

A dedicated bowl lathe has a very short bed to allow the turner to get in front of the bowl and low rotational speed with high torque and a larger turning radius (>=20") for large bowls.

A good general lathe will do it all, with a modest bed length and wide speed range with ample torque at the low end. Features like a sliding head let the turner move the head near the tailstock end to emulate a dedicated bowl lathe or all the way the other end for longer spindles. Typically 14-20" turning radius. There are several excellent machines in this category that will do everything you need now and well into the future. If you buy too small, I suggest you will be upgrading before long with all that wood crying to be turned!! Bowls are addicting.

[carl mesaros]

Myself along with most of us started with a small lathe "too see how we'd like it".
Well in my case woodturning opened a whole new world of creativity and soon enough my little lathe was too small. So a larger lathe was purchased and now 4 years later I'm lusting after an even larger one!
So I'd recommend at least 16" of swing and a 42" between centers. Also electronic variable speed is not necessary but you will be really glad you opted for it.
Remember everything you can do on a small lathe you can do on a larger one plus so much more.

[Thom Sturgill]

...Remember everything you can do on a small lathe you can do on a larger one plus so much more.

I'm finding this is not so true. I'm looking at buying a smaller (Oneway 1224) as an addition to my bigger Jet 1642 due rto its high top-end speed. I occasionally turn *small* spindles and need as much as I can get.