Spindle Vs Bowl Lathes

[Mike Holbrook]

I have been pondering the question of what I want to use a lathe for over & over. I got interested in turning by building chair rungs, legs and tapered tenons in a class with a lathe. I started out looking for a small lathe that I could use to turn chair legs, rungs and for making round tenons. I got interested in the bowl turning projects that are popular on this turning forum and changed my direction trying to allow for the fact that I might want to turn bowls. The whole idea of turning bowls seems to favor lathe designs that move design considerations in a different direction, favoring more vertical vs horizontal working room. This realization had little influence on me early on as most chair parts I would make are under 24". Recently it has occurred to me that I may want to turn tool handles and walking sticks which are often much longer than chair parts.

My study of lathe design seems to suggest that most designs compromise in one direction or the other. Robust lathes for instance tend to handle shorter spindles and larger bowls. Oneway lathes seem to favor between centers distances vs height for bowls. Robust bed extensions are 16" vs 24" for Oneway. The small Oneway 1224 with a bed extension will handle a 48" spindle, whereas a Robust Liberty with a standard 28" bed will only handle 44" with a 16" bed extension. A standard Oneway 1640 handles 40" between centers, without an extension.

I am asking myself if I am more interested in turning spindles than bowls should I be considering a lathe designed to handle longer spindles instead of larger bowls? The Oneway 1224 lathe has a 1 hp motor which some consider small. I am wondering if the hp of a lathe is more significant for turning large bowls than long spindles?

[Bob Hamilton]

Hi, Mike:

Yes, the greater the diameter the greater the torque required to turn the wood against the cutting resistance of the tool. Bowls are usually larger in diameter than spindles, so more torque/hp is needed to drive them and be able to remove wood at a reasonable rate.

Take care
Bob

[Geoff Whaling]

Mike, You are facing the dilemma and compromises that all wood turners face when purchasing a lathe. You are at least across the pluses & minuses. All you can do is select a lathe that ticks the most plusses and fewest minuses for what you expect to turn.

Most modern lathes are really bowl lathes that masquerade as general purpose lathes. Manufacturers & marketers know their markets and realize that there are far more “face plate” / bowl turners than spindle turners and that space is at a premium for most turners. Very few new lathes are true spindle lathes.

The compromises in designing a general purpose lathe mean that potential hazards can be created by the availability of wide speed ranges and the incredible torque on most new lathes. A bowl turner does not require a lathe that can do 3000 rpm or more, but for a spindle turner that may still not be fast enough for some spindle projects. Swivelling / moving headstocks & joints in bed extensions are a significant PIA for spindle turners as most require some fine tuning to align accurately.

Fortunately here in Oz we have Vicmarc still manufacturing long bed VL200’s (39” between centres). Vicmarc dropped the long bed VL300 but still manufacture extension beds for them. It simply gets back to the economics of manufacturing scale.

Recently I went through the exercise of purchasing a new lathe. I opted for a midi Vicmarc VL150 with a bed extension – 350 mm (14”) between centres + a 500 mm (18”) bed extension. It suits my needs perfectly plus I still have an original Aussie cast iron Woodfast M908 for bigger bowls.

btw remember between centers length - (drive center length + live center length + parting off margins) = available work piece length.

[Brian Ashton]

I turned for a couple decades on 12" lathes with 3/4hp motors without much, if any, problem of it being under powered, just take lighter cuts on larger diameters. From my point of view a 1hp motor shouldn't cause any problems. The thing that I find limiting is the length, as you have pondered. A spindle lathe can turn bowls but a bowl lathe has a hard, and occasionally impossible, time turning lengthy spindles, legs... Also if you evolve into doing deep hollowing, you'll need a decent length of bed to accommodate a reasonable setup... As with most I only have room for one lathe and will always go for a long bed over a bowl lathe so I can limit the restrictions of the lathe and what I can do with it.

Obviously YMMV if you have a limitless supply of cash...

[Doug Ladendorf]

I recently got to look at the Robust Sweet 16. It's a very interesting lathe with a center section that can be removed for larger bowls and platters, and that section can be stuck on the end for longer spindles or hollowing. It can also be put on the outboard side. That kind of flexibility seems pretty incredible to me, covering a wide range of turning.

[Mike Holbrook]

I have found, like shepherds, that a stick, crook or cane is an invaluable tool for moving beasties (dogs) around, keeping them from running through gates.... I am interested in specific designs that are not available commercially. As is true in most woodworking the orientation of the grain within the piece of wood has a major effect on whether it bends or breaks, unfortunately many commercial products do not give the grain in the wood close consideration. Although a drawknife or spokeshave may be great at following grain they may not be the best at producing a uniform thickness, tapered tenon... I am constantly needing a new handle for an axe, hoe, shovel or something too. The Oneway 1224 can handle 48". I am still trying to figure out what a 1640 can do. I am thinking spindle length may be more important to me than I originally thought.

I understand the physics of a large bowl spinning vs the much thinner typical spindle, I am just having a little difficulty relating it to the work I plan to do. Like several people have mentioned, I probably need to try a lathe or two out on the kind of work I am interested in.

[Mark Greenbaum]

The shopsmith I have got me started on turning, and I did a few small bowls from green unbalanced wood. And I have done several spindle projects (wands, tool handles, flutes, etc.) without any difficulty. The new G0766 should afford me the ability to do larger unbalanced green wood bowls and platters, and allow for long spindles (up to about 40"). I prefer Shaker style furniture as opposed to the turned spindles found on most chairs, so that is not a concern to me. 3 HP is a nice feature to handle the larger bowl and urn blanks (where end grain cutting will occur), and totally unneeded for most spindle work (side grain cutting). I look forward to trying both lines of craft.

[Ryan Mooney]

Mike, the 1640 is 40" between centers and you can optionally add a 24" bed extension for another $360 to allow up to 60" (or so)
http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Merc...es-oneway-1640

The 1224 is only 48" with the 24" bed extension:
http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Merc...es-oneway-1224

The sweet 16 comes in short, medium and long beds (and I'm betting they'd custom build longer if you have the $$'s )
http://turnrobust.com/PDF%27s/Sweet_16_Dimensions.pdf
Short: 16" (stock) + 14" (gap moved to end) = 30"
medium: 26 (stock) + 14" (gap moved to end) = 40"
long: 38 (stock) + 14" (gap moved to end) = 52"

The american beauty is:
standard: 28" + 16" ((optional extension) =44
long: 52" + 16" (optional extension) = 68"

The PM3520 is nominally 35" between centers but that would require some pretty small centers, its really closer to 33"... I've managed to "cheat" a bit hanging the head stock and tool stock an inch or so off of the end (it still engages fine) and gotten around 35" like that. You can get 18" and 50" extensions for that taking it up to 53" and 85" respectively. I believe you could add two 50" extension on the PM if you put another on the headstock, or if you drilled the extension for mounting holes you could add even more.

You can also cascade the Nova from 25" up to whatever in 20" increments using their extensions: http://www.teknatool.com/products/la.../NOVA_2024.htm

The Jet 1642 is nominal 40" and has an optional extension of 20" or 57" (http://www.tools-plus.com/jet-708347.html) so 60" or 97"

Some folks have made their own extensions as well. This is for the PM, but the idea isn't that far off for other lathes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...7MQM20/preview - search for "mustard monster lathe"

You get to much past 40" though and the vibration on anything like you're talking about making starts to get about impossible to turn without a stead rest (I've done 33"x3/4" spoon handles without one with careful skew cuts, lots of back support with my hand and cutting it sequentially from the tailstock to the headstock leaving as much meat as possible on the headstock side as long as possible). It also start to become a pain to get pieces of wood with grain that long thats actually straight around here.. you might have better luck.. hopefully. Much past that and I'm back to splitting, draw knife, and spoke shave to keep it with the grain anyway (and no those pieces aren't exactly straight either).

If you're really looking at a spindle lathe you could probably do worse than the Nova. An old Conover would be a decent choice as well if you can find one (and hey you can make the bed as long as you want there )

[Thom Sturgill]

Unless you are looking to turn real small items like dollhouse miniatures the 3000 RPM or so available on most lathes is fine. On the other hand if you want to turn bowls the 600 RPM or so low end speed of the spindle oriented lathes is too fast. HP and torque relate more to the mass you are turning, whether a large bowl or spindle (think column).

For example look at nova's data on chuck jaws. They list two sets of conditions: Max diameter based on bowl shape and max protrusion based on spindle orientation (hollow forms). A set of jaws that will handle a 16" bowl is limited to 6" depth but can handle 12" depth if limited to 8" diameter. It takes the same gripping strength (or power for rotating) for both of those conditions and you can interpolate intermediate limits (12" diameter = 9" depth, etc)

Another issue is how different manufacturers rate the HP of their motors. And that is another whole can of worms, and one I am not confident to discuss except to acknowledge that it can be an issue.

[Bruce Pratt]

The length issue has been pretty well covered. If turning a really large diameter bowl is on your bucket list, remember that many of the medium to higher end lathes, some mentioned above, have sliding or rotating head stocks to allow turning larger bowls. They (the bowls) tend not to sell particularly well (at least at the venues I do), but one or two are an interesting challenge to turn.

[Ryan Mooney]

The length issue has been pretty well covered. If turning a really large diameter bowl is on your bucket list, remember that many of the medium to higher end lathes, some mentioned above, have sliding or rotating head stocks to allow turning larger bowls. They (the bowls) tend not to sell particularly well (at least at the venues I do), but one or two are an interesting challenge to turn.

Yeah, I was rather surprised at that myself. I only give them away and over somewhere around 12-14" most people don't seem to even want them for free if they're given a choice of that or a smaller one. I had a stack of a dozen or so I'd gotten off of one fellows tree varying from 10" up to around 18" across and various depths as well; when he picked out the "one in exchange for the free wood" both him and his wife picked the smallest two (both dimensions) as their favorites and settled on the actual smallest one of the lot. They're still fun to do

[Dale Bonertz]

You could stop fretting about it and buy my Vicmarc VL300 long bed lathe for $3750 and be don with it. Not sure what it is between centers but plenty for canes and chairs. Also has a 24 inch swing for large bowls. Best of both worlds.

[Emery Swenson]

Mike,

I would like to invite you to our local turner's club. The Atlanta Woodturners Guild meets every third Wednesday at Woodcraft on Holcomb Bridge in Alpharetta. Beside being a great social time with top notch turning instruction, the group contains turners with varied interests from which I think you would benefit. Next meeting is in two days, July 15 at 7:00. Hope to see you there.

Emery

[Frank Drew]

IMO, an ideal bowl lathe should allow you to turn without leaning over the bed, so, on a typical spindle lathe, a sliding headstock or outboard (i.e. left side of the headstock) threading with a no-nonsense tool rest seems essential, in addition to a variable speed and reversing motor. Both inboard and outboard threading should be the same so that you don't have to buy different tooling (something that General seemed not to understand with their otherwise well-made lathes). The Powermatic sliding head lathes might be the best of both worlds although I think most spindle lathes are a bit too short between centers for maximum utility -- I'd like about 60".

I packed up the head- and tailstocks of my Rockwell lathe, giving me a 19" swing, but I never liked having the bed in the way when faceplate/bowl turning.

[Steve Peterson]

You might also consider that many lathes can support multiple bed extensions. This allows almost unlimited length possibilities. You would definitely need a steady rest or two as you increase the length.

Steve