Outboard Turning

[Jason Christenson]

As I've been roughing out a lot of bowls lately, I find that I would like to make them bigger and bigger. In my case that means turning on the outboard side. Without even trying it seems to me that I need to reverse te direction that my lathe spins, otherwise the first time I have a catch (which will likely be soon) my faceplate or chuck will rapidly unscrew itself from the spindle. Assuming that I am correct, how do I reverse my lathe? It is an old Rockwell/Delta that doesn't have a "spin backwards button". The only thing I''ve thought of is twisting the belt once but I assume that that will trash the belt in short order.

My other question is in regards to tool rest. I'm going to have to build some kind of stand or tripod to hold my tool rest. I assume that there are other people here doing this and I'm hoping that someone has plans for how to build this.

Any other outboard turning advice that you can think of would be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

[Kevin McPeek]

I believe the outboard thread is usually left handed. If its not is there any flat where you could use a set screw in the face plate. Mine have set screws for reverse turning because yeah the faceplate/chuck will back off the threads without them DAMHIKT. I've bought most of them from Don Pencil.