I've been thinking about wanting a wood lathe, but don't know much about them.



I'm a gunsmith, so I can know how to use a metal lathe and I am also fairly good at wood carving and shaping by hand, so combining the two shouldn't be hard. I probably wouldn't use it for any gunsmithing work, other than maybe shotgun fore ends/pumps. I was think more for making bowls and goblets and stuff like that for fun



How much would I cost to get a decent sized hobby set up with the main tools that would be needed.



Any other info on the subject is welcome as well.





I don't currently have a metal lathe, but if I did I would not be using it for wood working

why wouldnt you use a metal lathe for wood? it can be used as long as you take your time but there will be a little bit of a learning curve. best advice is to search for some woodworking forums and search there or even use google/bing and just refine your search with something like metal lathe for wood turning or wood working lathe. you should be able to find the ARF of wood carving.

Like a metal lathe but for wood duh.

Thanks



 

You are welcome.

Find an old Rockwell 46-201 gap bed lathe.
Great solid wood lathe..

The dust from cutting wood can be problematic, and at the very least a pain to clean out of the machine, so I wouldn't use a metal lathe for turning wood. Plus wood lathes have supports for your hand/tools. I suppose that I could find or make something that would do that in place of the tool post, but again I'm not going to use a metal lathe for wood, and I don't even have one right now anyway.



I'm looking for for hobby use, nothing too fancy. I'm not going to be making baseball bats or anything like that.



 

This book was published in 1919 but the tools and techniques are still very relevant.
You can download the book for free...

A Course In Woodtunring:

http://archive.org/details/courseinwoodturn00milt

It's possible to turn metal on a wood lathe and vice versa...some smaller lathes were specificaly marketed to do both.
I've turned small pieces of aluminum on mine to make small rivets in a pinch..
I do agree, it's best to use a metal lathe for metal and a wood lathe for wood.

You can start out with a "midi lathe"...the Jet ones are rather good...but I quickly outgrew mine and found the old Rockwell on Craigslist.
It's not that heavy, fits against a wall in the garage and runs on 110V...

Now that's what I'm talking about.



Probably actually a bit larger than I would need, but when it comes to lathes larger is usually better IMO, and judging by the baseball bat on it that thing is huge





Any idea on what I would expect to pay for something like this. I'm assuming used wood lathes don't suffer from some of the things that used metal lathes can, assuming it was cared for, no worn beds, crashed to hell gears, beat up and bent lead screws and such since they aren't there to begin with. I did a little poking around online and saw new ones going for less than $200 to more than a couple grand.





How do you attach the pieces to the head? Do you just sorta use the tail stock to clamp it down into the spindle kinda like going between centers? I see a 4 jaw, a face plate. and it looks like the current attachment there would just kind dig into the wood



Thanks



 

Thanks, you've been very helpful



Although now I've gone from "a wood lathe could be fun" to "I need a wood lathe now!" so I also kinda hate you (but not really)





 

5 speed 10x18" was under $200. Check Grizzly as they have quite a few. I would not go smaller than this one. About $250 more for a set of gouges & chisels, drill chuck, nifty chuck like a SuperNova. You can make a fair amount of tooling and cutters since you're a metal machinist. Me, too. I have a setup for 2MT collets I put together.

I made some retractable casters for the lathe bench. I move it out in front of the shop and make a mess outside. It's a fun mess :).

If you have a metal lathe get a dog and a rest or make a rest.

Search Craig's list in your area for "lathe".  The luckiest situation for you would be to find a high school which has closed down its woodworking shop.  Look for an old Powermatic or Delta-Rockwell with a Reeves drive system, and with a single phase motor.  They will have this handle in the front for changing speeds if equipped with a Reeves drive system:


As far as anything new retail look for a Nova lathe with, I guess, a DC motor, where you can dial the speed up or down:


They are sold by Woodcraft which is a nation wide franchise.

The current Rolls Royce of wood lathes is a One Way:


Delta does offer a lathe with a DC motor in their current line up.

As far as "chisels" go IIRC there are two types:  gouges and scrapers.  they are used differently and they are sharpened differently.  The Cadillac of lathe "chisels" is Robert Sorby.  There are others out there but they are so specialized their names escape now.

Lathe turning is a skill say like playing a guitar.  You can only learn so much from books and videos.  Just as a safety issue you should take at least one introductory class if you have never done it before.

It seems like the magic price point number for a tablesaw, planer, jointer, and a lathe that separates the "industrial" strength tools from the hobbist grade tools is right around $1,500.  You can find lighter duty lathes from $200 to $600 new retail.

For an older Rockwell lathe in a decent shape, expect to pay between $200-$400.
Mine came with the Reeves drive that the original owner had pruchased on Ebay and never installed...it was fairly easy to install.
I also replaced the bearings in mine (not hard to do).
One of these days I will remove the reeves drive and retrofit it with a VFD system.
If you dont care about easy speed changes, just use the standard step pulley that it came with..those work well enough.

The heastock and tailstock are standard #2 Morse Taper.
The 4 jaw chuck is called a Nova chuck,,,,made by a small company in New Zealand...it just screws right on...

For turning between centers, you normally would use what is known as a "spur center" on the headstock.
For the tailstock, I use a live center (ball bearing center) or you can use a cup center...wich is simply a cup with a point, lubricated with a bit of wax.
The centers slide into the headstock and tailstock using a Morse Taper on most lathes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HayijSu7QZ8

Yeah, that is probably the smallest I would get, and I probably would want something a little bigger anyway.



And yeah I've also made my own chisels for carving wood by hand, but they wouldn't be adequate for lathe work I don't think, so this would be a source for a lot of fun projects for a while.



Thanks guys, but it's bed time for me

Making stuff with your hands is fun
 

I play guitar too, heh.



And I'm pretty good on a metal lathe, is there anything different about the wood lathe safety wise to be concerned about. I'm really big on safety. I even cringed a little seeing the chuck key on the metal lathe in the back ground of the picture of the small red lathe in this thread. Even though I know that chuck doesn't move I still did't like it. I've seen a rifle barrel come off a lathe because the guy forgot to secure the tailstock, breaking the lathe dog in the process. That was scary and luckily it hit the back of the lathe and no one was hurt, and I've seen chuck keys launched from the headstock as well



Anyway, past my bed time now, so I'll check back in the morning, thanks again guys









 

The only time I have heard of metal lathes for turning wood was to make pool ques.

In case you didn't know, you can turn bowls chucked into the headstock over the bed which is called inboard tutning.  You can chuck a chunk of wood on the other side of the headstock which is called outboard turning.  The Nova 4 jaw chucks kinda set the standard.  You can get all kinds of different faceplates and jaws for them.

You can also buy a faceplate like this:


It threads onto the shaft... After you have lag screwed your chunk of wood to it.  You just to watch how far you go into the wood with your gouge/scraper lest you hit the lag screw.

A decent Midi lathe is a good start, lets you get some experience w/o too much money, and w/o being a junky lathe. I have a Jet Midi, and it's all I need so far, mostly pens, a couple of experimental small bowls, and misc. turnings trying things out.  

I only just got around to buying a G3 chuck for it.

See if you have a woodcraft or rockler store in your area and check them out. Check out your local library for woodturning books.

BTW, I'm a machinist too. Used to have a sherline lathe at home. Started penmaking on that machine. Wasn't that difficult, made a tool rest for it, and it was a lot easier to make straight cuts with the manual feed.

I really wouldn't worry about wood dust and stuff on a metal lathe, you probably get plenty of metal dust and oil on it as it is.

As for making your own turning tools, old (read Pre-1980 or so) coil and leaf springs yield some good steel for same.  Anneal, hammer/grind/file, heat back up, quench in motor oil, and temper.

Never used one, so the only advice I can give is , don't wear a tie while turning.