Can the Gunsmithing lathe turn oak?

[Charles Coolidge]

I plan to mix wood and metal working on some projects and finally ran my first test on wood this evening to see how it would cut some oak. I used some 1-1/4" oak dowel I found at Lowes this weekend for the test. Its fairly open grained and reasonably smooth. By the way this digital read out for length and diameter is fantastic!

http://www.coolidgeamps.com/pics/lc29.jpg

It took some research to find these carbide inserts, they are polished and quite sharp.

http://www.coolidgeamps.com/pics/lc2.jpg

Here's a set of tool holders that all use this same insert. I also have some internal boring bars that take these inserts.

http://www.coolidgeamps.com/pics/lc10.jpg

Here's the results from the test. The OD is at least as smooth as the factory finish and it did a fantastic job on the end grain face cut, as good as I get from a Forrest blade. This was at 270 RPM, I did another test at 360 with the same results, at 800 RPM the finish was noticeably rougher, that was at .004 per revolution. I may try that again with a slower feed. Depth of cut each pass was .020 inch.

http://www.coolidgeamps.com/pics/lc31.jpg

[Gary Kman]

A little like using a Ferrari to fetch the mail but nothing wrong with that either.
A lathe does a pretty good job of making square things round if you don't want to pay the premium for dowels.

With the right end unsupported by the tailstock there is a risk of the tool biting in and ripping the stock out of the chuck. For metal the rule of thumb is that the stock shouldn't extend more than two diameters past the chuck. Also cutting metal requires significant tool feed force which deflects the work.

I have had the previous model of your lathe for several years and am very pleased with it.

Make lots of chips.

[Dave Cullen]

That's what cuemakers use. They cut wood just fine.

[John R Hoppe]

It will work just fine, and I do this on my lathe often. A couple of things to consider though...First, be sure the wood dust does not get into the way wipers or the lead screw mechanism and clean it thoroughly after each use. Second, the tooling has edges and angles for cutting metal and not wood. I use tools that have been ground with acute angles and also with a skew angle to the cut. They work much better for wood and will leave a smoother finish on tough to machine materials.

[dan sherman]

Like John said, custom grind some hss bits to appropriate angle and spin it as fast as you would on a wood lathe and the wood won't know the difference.

[Chris Fournier]

Like John said, custom grind some hss bits to appropriate angle and spin it as fast as you would on a wood lathe and the wood won't know the difference.

Except that you can work immeasurably faster and with more pleasure on a wood lathe. Be careful of wet oak on your lathe, it will mess up the ways. I have metal and wood lathes and I can't imagine cutting wood on my metal lathe. Unless of course I had to.

[Charles Coolidge]

I have no interest in a wood lathe, I won't be turning bowls or wet wood so I'm not concerned about the ways plus my cyclone will deal with wood chips. I used to run huge CNC Mori's when I was younger so I quite enjoy working with metal lathes. I will be turning wood and brass, precision turning and threading is more of what I have in mind. I have some Carmex threading inserts inbound ETA tomorrow I'll be testing those on wood this weekend but suspect I'll need to use HSS for threading wood. I hear you guys on grinding HSS, I already have HSS parting tools the carbide parting inserts are nowhere near sharp enough for wood. Where I can use carbide inserts though I prefer them. I have looked over a few carbide inserts designed for wood lathes at Woodcraft, there's no reason I could not adapt those for use on my metal lathe. Especially those for beading and coving. I can precision turn tapers on my lathe as well. It should be interesting and fun.

[dan sherman]

Except that you can work immeasurably faster and with more pleasure on a wood lathe. Be careful of wet oak on your lathe, it will mess up the ways. I have metal and wood lathes and I can't imagine cutting wood on my metal lathe. Unless of course I had to.


I said the wood wouldn't know the difference, not that you wouldn't.