Woodturning Lathe Build Process

Return to main project page

After getting back from the "joys" of Christmas supermarket shopping, I finished off the spindle by cross-drilling the hole for the tommy bar:

Ignoring the minor inconvenience of making the spindle again from scratch once the 50 mm bar has arrived, that's the spindle done.

Rather than dwell on my mistake, I thought I'd get on with the next job: a new lid for the headstock. The current lid is a bit of relatively thin plate with a hole in it (for the tommy bar) and a sliding cover for the hole. The cover can easily get knocked (or vibrated) away from covering the hole, which isn't ideal. When I opened the lid as part of the disassembly of the lathe, the headstock had rather a lot of sawdust inside. I'd like to improve that.

When I made the original lid, I took advantage of the relative flexibility of the thin steel sheet and didn't bother to machine the top surface of the headstock. For the new lid I'd like a flat reference so the first job was to stick the headstock in the milling vice and run an end mill around the top surface:

Next up was the lid, which is going to be made from a big lump of aluminium I found in the skip. The aluminium block was much too large so the first job was to cut a bit under half of it off in the bandsaw. The cut-off bit then got mounted in the mill vice and I used my big flywheel fly cutter to clean up all the faces and bring it to the target dimension. In progress shot:

The fly cutter leaves a lovely finish:

After squaring up all six faces:

I then used a 16 mm end mill to cut a profile into the underside of the aluminium block:

The tallest bit drops down between the two bearing retainers and provides enough material for some screws to come in from front and back (rather than above) so I can use bigger screws (compared to the M3 ones I used on the previous lid). The shallower bit sits fully inside the lid against the edges of the headstock.

Before finishing for the day, I did a test fit, dropping the headstock (with bearing retainers fitted) onto the lid to check there were no clashes:

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

This website is free and ad-free, but costs me money to run. If you'd like to support this site, please consider making a small donation or sending me a message to let me know what you liked or found useful.

Please do get in touch if you notice any issues on the site or can think of anything that would be a helpful addition or improvement.