Long Bed Wood Lathe................Build?

[Ian Lerner]

Hello All,

I have a Shopsmith Mark V 110 but it does not have the length between centers that I require for a new project. The head instructor at the local dojo asked me if I could make wooden dummies for the school. The dummies traditionally are 5 feet tall and 9 inches in diameter......just a smooth cylinder with a few holes cut through for the arms and leg.

Now making a small wood lathe is no big deal but making one 7-8 feet long is a different matter. Specs for dealing with the extra weight are unknown. I don't think a treadle lathe would be strong enough.....or shall I say I don't think I have enough power to make something that size turn...electric has much more appeal to me. Plus it's warm here in Mexico and I would be spending more time wiping sweat off my glasses than I would be spending actually turning. The only appeal is the ability to safely turn that log slowly. So electric it is.

I've shopped the net for lathes of that length and anything that comes up is pricey. With the Shopsmith ways being tubes, extending the bed is not an easy thing to do so far as I've been able to imagine it.

I can't seem to find any decent plans to build from and I can't afford to buy another lathe.

I need input as to how to construct the headstock with regard to bearings. The ones I've seen built use pillow block bearings that don't take into account the lateral stresses. I think a thrust bearing of some type should be incorporated but don't know how or of what type to use.

Any suggestions or advice will be highly welcomed or if you happen to have a source for a plan would be great also. Annnnd any suggestions on how to slow things down enough to safely rough out that large a piece from a square lamination. thanks

Just thought of something else.....shaft size. What would be the most common shaft diameter and threading to later take advantage of some common accessories such as face plate, chucks etc. as well as tail stock considerations?

[Dennis Ford]

In my opinion, this is the right type of machine to make yourself. Small lathes are very common and mass production makes them inexpensive to buy compared to building. There is no mass production of long spindle lathes, so your choices are: build it yourself, buy an old industrial machine (if you can find one) or buy a current model and purchase bed extensions.

I would not be afraid of using pillow block bearings on a home built although tapered roller bearings would be more durable. Actually you can purchase very robust bearings mounted in pillow block housings but they are expensive. If you use pillow block bearings, consider welding threaded blocks such that you can use bolts or long set-screws to push the pillow blocks side to side for fine tuning the alignment.

#2 morse taper is by far the best choice for tail-stock and I would recommend the same for the head-stock shaft. 1-1/4" x 8tpi or 1" x 8 tpi are common enough that accessories are readily available for either.

[Dwight Rutherford]

Must the " body" be a single piece of wood? Would it be acceptable to make it in 2 sections? Only need a lathe with a 36" bed. Or 3 sections if you use a 24" bed.

[Brice Rogers]

Ian, since you are contemplating a special machine that will probably be for a single purpose, I don't see a real problem using your Shopsmith power unit for the headstock and then making a bed and tailstock of sorts. If it were me, I would figure out how to mount the power unit onto your long bed. I would separate it from the tubes but use the four through holes to support it. That way, when you are done, you still have a "stock" Shopsmith. For a one-time use, you could make the bed out of wood (perhaps a pair of 4 x 4's). For your banjo, perhaps you use a stout angle iron and span the entire length of the 5 foot long "spindle", with two or three supports along the length. The tailstock could be from your Shopsmith, using the same mounting technique as on the headstock.

While you could make the single purpose lathe out of wood, if you have the equipment, you could also weld it and make it out of steel. In fact, if you can find some steel tubes of about the same diameter as the stock ones, you could just do that. If the tubes are stiff enough they could even be smaller than the original ones if you made some sort of adapter (wood?).

Take a look on Youtube with key words like long home made lathe. There are a number of videos that might give you some ideas.

Keep in mind though that on a long lathe like this that it probably won't be as rigid as your shopsmith. So you probably want to take light cuts and use very sharp tools. Also keep in mind that there will be a lot of rotating mass, so give your SS some time to spin up and also to slow down.

[David Delo]

Ian,
If you have all the lathe accessories for your SS and know how to use it as a lathe, I'd look into getting a set of tubes made to the length needed. Another idea is to pick up a second SS on the cheap and use it for tailstock purposes. Also, I'd do a little inquiry over on the SS forum. This type of stuff has been done before. To bad one person with alot of experience doing stuff like this (Bill Mayo) recently passed away. Here's a link to one such discussion. http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/viewtopic.php?t=14600

[David Delo]

Upon further checking, here's a response from a guy's 2 replies on how he turned 6"D, 8' long piece. Hope this helps.

Paul, the unregistered guy above is me. Shopsmith's computer has an evil sense of humor and does that
to me every now and then. I don't know about max weight, but I've turned a 6-inch-diameter, 8-foot-long
porch post on my Shopsmith with no problem...I should say, no more than the usual problems.
(Don't ask me to show you guys how I turned an 8-foot piece on a machine with a 4-foot capacity.
As Lord High Executioner here at the Academy, I'm supposed to be the model of safety and a paragon of
common sense. I turned the post back in my reckless youth, about three years ago.)

Of course, I...ahem...would never be so dumb as to do this myself, nor so irresponsible as to recommend
that someone else do it, but if someone were to hold a gun to my dog's head, I might suggest that they
(1) bolt the tailstock to the barn wall at the appropriate height, (2) slide the headstock on the Shopsmith
all the way to the left, (3) position the Shopsmith so that there is an adequate amount of space between
centers, (4) sandbag the legs of the Shopsmith so it can't move, (5) mount the stock between centers and
turn 1/2 half of the shape, (6) then turn the stock end for end and turn the remainder of the shape.
This is only theoretical, of course. Except for the dog.

[Reed Gray]

I would guess you are talking about the Wing Chun Muk Yan Jong dummy with the 3 arms and one leg. I have spent a bit of time with one and was looking into making one as well. There are a couple of You Tube clips up, but none are done by turners. My main worry with the Shopsmith is, if I remember correctly, they have a very high minimum rpm speed, some thing like 750 or so. For a spindle that size, and I think 6 inch would be minimum diameter, that would be very fast for start up if you have any roughing to do at all. If the piece is perfectly centered and balanced, you could get away with it. Not sure I can suggest any easy solutions unless you are within driving distance from me, or some one else with a long bed lathe.

robo hippy

[M Toupin]

Think outside the box; a router jig will accomplish the same thing, be quicker to build and make it perfectly straight too.

Mike

Here's a example i found on the internet.

[Olaf Vogel]

Hello All,

I have a Shopsmith Mark V 110 but it does not have the length between centers that I require for a new project.

There are ways to build an old fashioned post & beam lathe.
However, it would really help if you described what your project is and what you are trying to accomplish.

[roger oldre]

dad 14 foot.jpg
This turning is 14 feet long turned between lathes lol. I have made a few of the dummies in the past. They were constructed staved and the rectangular holes were made prior to gluing the staves together. Then the pillar was turned round.

[Ian Lerner]

Thanks Dennis, your points you made are all things I have considered and hence arrived at the same conclusion. I'm considering using two sealed ball bearings, one on each end of the spindle shaft with a Timken tapered bearing similar to what Chevy used to use in the front end wheel bearings to accommodate the lateral stresses from the tail stock.

The spindle I going to try to find a machine shop capable of turning one for me that will include #2 MT and 1-1/4" x 8tpi or 1" x 8 tpi like you suggested. As I'm now retired and living full time in Mexico, going down to the local hardware store is no longer an option to find these things but labour to have them made is really cheap. I will probably go with the 1"x tpi as I believe they might be more common than the 1-1/4.......correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Ian Lerner]

Must the " body" be a single piece of wood? Would it be acceptable to make it in 2 sections? Only need a lathe with a 36" bed. Or 3 sections if you use a 24" bed.

Hi Dwight, I've rolled this over and over in my mind wondering if it could be feasible. They in turn would have to be made solid into one piece again after turning before they could be used. When the arms or leg was struck they could rotate out o alignment from one another. I have thought about making a portable dummy where it could be taken apart to transport........this then could be an attractive feature to be given more thought.

[Jamie Buxton]

Ernie Conover used to build and sell wood-bed lathes. They were more like kits; he supplied the moving parts, and the buyer supplied the structural stuff. The buyer could just as easily build a long-bed lathe as a shorter one. He's no longer in this business, and used Conover lathes turn out to be somewhat spendy. But you might look around the web for his machines for ideas for your own.

[Ian Lerner]

There are ways to build an old fashioned post & beam lathe.
However, it would really help if you described what your project is and what you are trying to accomplish.

The original post read "The dummies traditionally are 5 feet tall and 9 inches in diameter......just a smooth cylinder".

I'd like to hear more on the post and beam lathes.

[David M Peters]

Another "outside the box" idea: could you construct the dummy from several shorter pieces of turned wood? You would join them with a mortise & tenon joint.