Wood Lathe Build Process

23/3/2024

I thought it was probably about time I posted an update on how things have been going with the lathe. Since finishing the lathe I've done a bit of shopping (and a lot of sharpening!): I had a weekend in Lyme Regis and while I was in the area I visited Axminster Tools and bought a chuck and a set of turning tools to get me started. I then visited a superb second-hand tool shop in Beer (Dolphin Antiques) and found that they had a decent selection of used lathe tools and also a big array of second-hand chuck jaws (for £15 a set) that fitted the chuck I'd just bought. I can resist anything but temptation, so I got a bit carried away and now have several different chuck jaw options and a selection of cutting tools to experiment with, along with a cheap second-hand pen mandrel in case I ever get tempted to try pen or pencil making. On note unrelated to woodturning, I also bought a Quirk router as I've been looking out for one for a while. Photo of the haul from Dolphin Antiques:

I've no idea at all how useful those chuck jaws will be, but at £15 per set it seemed daft not to buy a few varieties (I also have a set of so-called "Type C Dovetail Jaws" that came with the chuck). The buttons that came with the button jaws are still sealed in their packet, so I don't think the jaws have had much use! Dolphin Antiques had a lot more jaw types that I didn't buy, so I can at least claim to have been a little bit restrained! If it turns out that the jaws aren't especially useful for what I want, I can probably sell them for more than £15 a set anyway.

With a total of 10 turning tools and a selection of chuck jaws, I am now firmly in the "all the gear, no idea" category when it comes to wood turning!

On my return from the trip to Dorset, I tried fitting the chuck and found that it didn't fit the spindle. There were two problems: the threaded section was too long (and hit the back of the jaws) and also the register is too small (33 mm where it should have been 34 mm), so doesn't centre the chuck properly. The thread is a nice snug fit, so it would probably still run true, but I think the register is supposed to be the thing that ensures concentricity.

The over-long thread isn't a big deal: it's easy to remount the chuck on the metalworking lathe and shorten the nose (and I did that to check there were no other problems). However, making the register bigger would be an issue: I could consider shrink fitting some larger steel over the top and then turning it to size, but it would be much easier to just make a new spindle, so that's what I did.

To be honest, it wasn't a surprise that the chuck didn't fit. I had suspected that the chuck-mounting thread might be a problem, so I took some vernier calipers with me to Axminster Tools and measured the nose of one of the lathes in the shop: that was when I realised the register size I'd found on-line was wrong. The nose of the new spindle is made to match the dimensions of one of Axminster's lathes.

Anyway, the new spindle was made in much the same way as the old one and the chuck now fits very well. While I was swapping the spindle, I also replaced the front bearing with a sealed angular contact bearing - I wanted to swap it for a sealed type and since I had to buy that I figured an angular contact type might be better.

The new spindle fitted with the angular contact bearing:

I'm still a long way off making any proper use of the chuck, although I gave it a try just to check it span on the lathe okay:

I've been experimenting with the "proper" (as opposed to home-made) lathe tools and I've definitely got a lot to learn. I'm okay with taking a square-section piece of timber and turning it cylindrical with a spindle roughing gouge and then making it smoother with a skew chisel, but I'm a long way off being comfortable with any type of shaping at all. I've managed a few goes at very simple shaping with the skew chisel but also had quite a few less-successful attempts. So far I've been even less successful with a spindle gouge. I'll keep practising!

I've also sent an email to the membership secretary of the Gloucestershire Association of Woodturners to try to join (or at least join the membership waiting list), but haven't heard anything back thus far. They offer courses for beginners, which would be great if I can join, but failing that I might have to look elsewhere for tuition. In the meantime I've got the next week booked off and no plans (and the weather forecast isn't looking great), so I will have plenty of time for more practice (and for watching more Richard Raffan youtube videos).

A couple of random photos from my experimentation:

Another thing I've been starting to think about is where to store the lathe and the lathe tooling. For the lathe itself, I got a couple of offcuts of fairly thick steel and welded them together (after shaping one a little with a flap disk and drilling and countersinking some mounting holes in the other):

The holes in the "prong" were already there in the offcut I used: they serve no purpose here. That bracket got screwed to one of the joists and I could then mount the lathe bed to the bracket:

It's right at the limit of what I can lift (and unusually for my lanky frame, I needed a step ladder to feel comfortable getting it up there) and it's probably the first real test of my welding skills as I've never done anything quite so structural before!

The eagle-eyed among you will notice another modification to the lathe: the bed has been raised up a bit higher (it's now on two pieces of 3030 extrusion instead of just one). I was finding the lathe a little low so I thought raising it a bit would help. If I have to raise it any higher again I'll either have to raise the motor at the same time or buy a longer drive belt!

Regarding storage, I still haven't figured out where to store the motor & drive assembly:

The motor is very heavy, so I don't want to have to lift it very high up (so no option of hanging it from a joist) or put it low down (so no option of sliding it under something, not that there's any floor space under anything in the workshop!). I'm rather short of options, so it might just have to live on one or other bench for now until I can figure out a better option.

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