Brian Ashton
02-23-2014, 2:31 AM
Decades ago I was the resident expert turner for a shop where we were commissioned to make red cedar seats for a high end hotel up in Long Beach BC... At that time I didn't have a lathe that could turn 24" plus wood so with a bit of head scratching I came up with this... It's made of old particle board cabinets, a couple plumbing nipples (for face plates), a couple plywood V blocks to act as bearings, and a few pipe clamps for the lathe spindle and crank. The "tool" rest was two pieces of ply screwed into an L shape and that's what I used to "guide" the router as I moved it along the log. I even made a curved tool rest for a couple seats that were convex and concave... I called it the 1 jack power lathe; Jack was the guy who powered it. I'd call out over the din of the router for him to speed up, slow down or stop as I was working. It was quite technical really. You can see the jorgansen clamp in the pic, that acted as a breaking system to the out of balance/round pieces so they wouldn't spin out of control. It's one of those projects that was fun and brings back fond memories. If anyone has been in the Wickaninnish Inn in Long Beach let me know if they're still there - I think they were put in the Sauna area.