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Thread: New lathe

  1. #1

    New lathe

    So I really wanted a lathe so I can turn legs and other things for some projects I have on my (long) list of things I (eventually) want to build. Since I have all but abandoned my power tools, and I didn’t want to pony up the few grand it would cost for a power lathe with a large capacity anyway, I decided to build a pole lathe for about $100 in materials. The max capacity is 40 inches just to future-proof myself. The long length means that if I turn something small I have to anchor down one end of the tools rest. Right now I’m just using an F clamp for that, but I will come up with some other elegant solution in the future. The design actually disassembles easily into the bed section, two separate leg sections, and the treadle so that I can stash it flat up against the wall as I have limited space. This is actually technically a bungee lathe because I don’t have the space for a pole in my basement. Due to the low ceiling height and the fact that I’m unusually tall (making the lathe tall), in order to get enough travel I’m running it through a small pulley that hangs from one of several nails in a soffit that houses some AC ductwork. The other end is connected to a bungee that spans the length of a significantly heavy bench/counter. I was nervous this wouldn’t work well, but it works insanely well. The treadle has a swinging arm which allows me to easily reposition the cord around the piece I’m turning.

    I’m honestly very surprised how well these things work. It is DIFFICULT though. It’s not so much the rhythm of pedaling and plunging the chisels – I work in music so I have plenty of rhythm. It’s more the slow speed necessitating that you are incredibly accurate with your chisel placement to take a fine shaving rather than scraping (which doesn’t really work) or getting caught and running a nifty spiral across a nice bead you just made. I’ve only had a few hours of practice with it over the last week and it’s a load of fun, and very quiet. The worst part of it was my wife rolling her eyes at me for building the stupid thing – and then when she saw it in action she did a 180 and exclaimed “so you can make a banister for the stairwell now!” Ugh. No. That requires a slew of skills I do not currently possess.
    IMG_20180920_162924.jpg

  2. #2
    A few notes. You can have the pole parallel to the bed. That way the end of the pole can come down lower than your head and height is not such an issue. In any case you ought to look for a pole, a hickory or ash sapling averaging two inches, just so you can get a feel for how a pole works. You could set up temporarily outside or in a barn or a garage.

    As you have figured out, you have to pick and choose among power tool techniques because some don't work very well. The good new is that the more sophisticated, cleaner cutting techniques are much easier to learn on the pole lathe. The best book I read to learn technique was F. Pain Practical Wood Turner.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    A few notes. You can have the pole parallel to the bed. That way the end of the pole can come down lower than your head and height is not such an issue. In any case you ought to look for a pole, a hickory or ash sapling averaging two inches, just so you can get a feel for how a pole works. You could set up temporarily outside or in a barn or a garage.
    The reason I can't use a pole in the basement, aside from the massive inconvenience of having a huge pole down there, is the amount of travel. The best configuration possible would yield me less than four spins of a 2" diameter piece of wood as a theoretical maximum, so real-world would be even less. With the bungee configuration and the pulley, I can get more than seven turns without too much difficulty. I may try a pole out in the backyard one day, but it's certainly not very convenient.

  4. #4
    You are probably getting more travel and more revolutions than I.

    Roubo shows two positions for the cord. Going from the turning stock to the treadle you can either go outside the bed or right down through the bed. Note the two dotted lines in Fig.2 going down from the top of the puppet.The outside position yields more turns and less power, the inside gives less revolutions and more power so you can take larger chips. Both configurations were used in historic times. Here is Roubo (1769) and wilson (1766)

    roubo banc.jpglathe wilson and fells.jpeg

  5. #5
    nice to see another pole lathe turner starting out. I've been at it a while now, but the most complex thing i have done is a turned chair (reproduction of a circa 1200 swedish chair). And the turnings were the easy part. If you are ever travelling to the UK try to go in early May to coincide with the Bodgers Ball (big pole lathe turners convention).

    I understand your point about precision wrt the tool placement, but you will get used to it. In the past I have turned spindles of nothing but beads to tame the skew. Other people think they are wonderful, and all I can see are the catches and spirals.

    Darrell
    who turned a belaying pin tonight for a pirate friend
    Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User

  6. #6
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    Have you tried hanging a weight instead of a bungee? A bucket with some rocks in it should let you fine tune the weight.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Bender View Post
    Have you tried hanging a weight instead of a bungee? A bucket with some rocks in it should let you fine tune the weight.
    That would certainly be an interesting experiment. But I'm pretty certain the rhythm of treadling would turning the bucket into a swinging metronome that would make it difficult to stop and start again (so as to catch it on the right swing) and to change speeds. Plus, it would require a second pulley!!

    The bungee works great. If it ain't broke.....


    Turned my first real thing last night. A new handle for the skew that I used to actually make the handle.
    handle.jpg
    Last edited by chris carter; 09-22-2018 at 10:34 AM.

  8. #8
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    Nice handle, but your skew looks like a socket chisel with a slanted bevel. Not a bad thing since some of my lathe tools are converted socket chisels.

    Did anyone ever actually make socket end lathe tools?

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Nice handle, but your skew looks like a socket chisel with a slanted bevel. Not a bad thing since some of my lathe tools are converted socket chisels.

    Did anyone ever actually make socket end lathe tools?

    jtk
    I don't think so. There is no need to drive on the butt end of a turning chisel. Add to that the obvious danger of the tendency of socket chisel handles to work loose with vibration.

  10. #10
    The pole lathe turners I met in the UK typically use three main tools for spindles. A broad gouge, inch and a half or so, with a shallower sweep (curve) than the semi-circular roughing gouges power turners use. More like big firmer gouge, and ground at a shallower angle. Then there is the standard skew, familiar to all and the bane of many. Third one is a flat chisel, or planing chisel. This one is like 2 inches wide, not skewed, yet used like a really big skew. Great for flattening and smoothing spindles.

    With these three chisels I have seen pole lathe turners make two chair legs in under 12 minutes. And that includes splitting from the log and drawknife to roughly round. Not the prettiest of work, but quite serviceable and suitable for a garden bench or stool. Search for "log to leg race".

    Darrell
    whose L2L time was like 24 minutes, and the results were seriously ugly
    Wood Hoarder, Blade Sharpener, and Occasional Tool User

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Koepke View Post
    Nice handle, but your skew looks like a socket chisel with a slanted bevel. Not a bad thing since some of my lathe tools are converted socket chisels.

    Did anyone ever actually make socket end lathe tools?

    jtk
    It was a ¾” firmer chisel and I reground it to a double-bevel skew, the reason being is that it is incredibly difficult to find a wide enough double bevel skew that is not a power lathe turning tool – so you have to get really lucky or make your own. There is no issue with it being a regular socket bench chisel. Pole turning tools are not anything like power lathe turning tools. They are typically the exact same bench and carving tools you would normally use for non-turning purposes. I am by no means an experienced expert, but I’ve read just about everything about pole lathes that Google will find for me, watched pretty much every video on youtube that has a pole lathe in it, and read tons and tons of posts on the UK bodgers forum. You CAN use power lathe tools on a pole lathe, but they don’t work very well for a couple reasons. 1) the grind is too steep to slice the wood. On a power lathe the wood is moving so fast that you don’t really need to slice as the speed kind of does the work for you. On a pole lathe you simply cannot scrape, you must slice and slice elegantly. So pole lathe tools are sharpened to 25-30 degrees. 2) pole lathe tools have to be STOOOOPID sharp. You cannot take them off a grinder; you have to sharpen them just like your bench chisels, or SHARPER. And you have to frequently resharpen. For that reason, you can’t really use HSS conveniently; you need high carbon steel. 3) With the exception of bowl turning tools (which an entirely different set of tools) there is no need for the long handles of power lathe tools and many consider them unwieldy. Pole lathe tools don’t need the length because of the slow speed so you don’t need the leverage – and if you catch, it will automatically stop without jerking your hands anyway. So for these reasons, with rare exception, virtually every pole lathe turner I’ve seen or read uses regular bench or carving tools. That’s actually how I got the idea to regrind a firmer chisel, because it’s common to have difficulty acquiring one and it was regular advice to regrind a firmer chisel. The major exception is that Ashley Iles makes a modern set of turning tools, some of which have longish handles, but they are still the pole lathe shapes and high carbon steel. I do not know the reason why some of them have long handles but I did notice they are all the more common pole lathe tools so I suspect marketing is the reason (because they look familiar to power lathe turners and most pole lathe turners have previously used power lathes… or that’s my hypothesis).

    Oh yeah, about the socket – it doesn’t really matter. Your tool is never pointing steel end down so even if it were loose it will not fall out thanks to gravity. And you work it with two hands – one on the metal and one on the handle at all times. But even on my first few practice runs when I was bouncing my chisels around on the wood wildly like a Mexican jumping bean on steroids they still didn’t come loose. After an hour of practice, there really is very little vibration on a pole lathe it turns out… unless your tools is dull! As for “did anyone ever make socket end lathe tools?” The reality is that nobody ever made POLE lathe tools of any variety. They were always pre-existing tools that served double duty. Ashley Iles is the only company I’m aware of that has marketed a new line of turning tools specifically for pole lathes. I could see how a socket would be VERY bad for a power lathe, but it’s a non-issue for a pole lathe.

    Here’s what seems to be the typical set of pole lathe tools for turning anything other than bowls (which require wildly different tools). From left to right they are:
    - ¼” to 3/8” gouge. Mine is ¼”
    - ¾” to 1” double bevel skew. Mine is ¾”
    - 1 to 1-½” gouge for roughing. Mine is 1-1/4”. Most use deeper gouges, but I saw a few very well respected people Ben Orford and others using very shallow ones and I like the way they worked so I decided to try that rout.
    - super wide flat chisel. Mine is 2”.
    IMG_20180925_141412.jpg


    This video is, in my opinion, the best at explaining pole lathe turning, the tools, and how to use them. Even if you have no desire to use a pole lathe, it’s really interesting stuff.

  12. #12
    A small kit is all right for primitive work, but for 17th-18th century work you need several skew chisels and several spindle gouges. I like tools in the 15 to 20 inch range; longer length gives you better control because the handle is long in comparison to the distance from the tool rest to the work. Here is some 18th century style work from the pole lathe. No scraping, no sanding, no finish.

    warren-samples.jpg

    Here are some traditional tools:
    sheffield key.jpeg

  13. #13
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    Congratulations on the new lathe. And Warren/Chris, thanks for the information and the pics.

    We visited the new Globe Theater in London over the summer. They followed traditional construction methods, and the museum had some of the tools they used including a pole lathe. I'll see if I can find those pics and share them.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    A small kit is all right for primitive work, but for 17th-18th century work you need several skew chisels and several spindle gouges. I like tools in the 15 to 20 inch range; longer length gives you better control because the handle is long in comparison to the distance from the tool rest to the work. Here is some 18th century style work from the pole lathe. No scraping, no sanding, no finish.
    That stuff looks great! How far is your tool rest from the work, and how do you control the distance? I was going to make fingers, but ultimately chose to make the stair-step looking blocks because they appeared more convenient. Each step is 1/2". I basically just position the block (or remove it entirely) to keep the tool rest as close to the work as physically possible.

  15. #15
    Chris, you really want the rest as close as possible, like 1/8 inch or less. However, when the piece has a lot of variation in diameter, some places are going to be pretty far from the rest, and longer handles help control the tool in these cases. I use a tool rest that is wedged to the bed and can go between the puppets. The appliance between the centers gives an idea in this illustration.
    hulot lathe.jpg

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