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If you are going to do woodturning, you need a wood lathe. I can't tell you what kind of lathe to get as I am still learning this myself. My first lathe used square tubes for the ways and lacked rigidity EVERYWHERE. The headstock and spindle had more runout than I care to remember. It was a cheap lathe and it was a CHEAP lathe. You can do acceptable work even on the cheapies but you will soon need to upgrade. It is actually HARDER to do decent work on cheap lathes because you will always be fighting the lathe itself. My upgrade was to a lathe with tubular ways and even though it was more money, it had the same problems. I then went to a cast iron round way lathe that was considerably heavier and better built. My work improved some and I was fairly happy with it. The happiness only lasted until I tried to do some very small spindles. The runout and vibration kept my spindles fat since they would break off otherwise from the whipping around they were doing. Thin walled vessels were out of the question as well. My current lathe is still a cheap one. It has cast iron ways and looks to be well built. It is heavy and is pretty ridgid. The spindle has a 1inch diameter, 8 threads per inch which allows a variety of accessories to be got for it. One of these accessories was a four jaw chuck. With the chuck on the spindle, runout becomes a VERY BIG problem. I currently work WITH the problem and stay away from thin walled anythings and small spindles. In my endeavers I have noticed a few things that might help you pick a lathe:
WEIGHT normally = Rigidity
Runout = Problems if excessive
Spindle = Go with a standard, not an oddball or accessories will be hard to find
$$$$$ = Bad as I hate to say it, bucks count when it comes to a good lathe. Buy the best you can afford!
This spalted oak bowl is well within the capabilities of most lathes using the faceplate, parting off, and sanding the bottom.
IF you add the foot as part of your turning and use a 4 jaw chuck to hold with, your cheap lathe may rear its ugly head and cause you problems. The further away you get from the headstock spindle, the more pronounced the runout will become. If you get far enough out it can be near impossible to do acceptable work without trying to correct the runout problem.
HOT TIP: Flea-markets can be great places to find used lathe tools! They won't be shiny clean and most likely will be downright ugly AND need to be sharpened but the price CAN be a real bargin. When you start pricing lathe tools the flea-market finds will look GREAT!
As for the bowl pictured here, it is simply found wood from an oak that had been down for a while. The chunks were cut via chainsaw, rounded up on a bandsaw and stacked under the lathe. Some of them have been sitting for a few years waiting for me to get to them. The bowl is 6 inches in diameter to the outside and about 3 inches tall. I gave it the form, the wood gave it the beauty.
Recommend this article... Last update : 05-02-2008 19:47
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