I would like to purchase a lathe duplicator to make a series of spindles that would all be alike but with my lathe skill this would be impossible. I don’t want to invest too much money this is for my home workshop. I tried making my own duplicator but was unable to obtain enough ridigity to make it work properly.
I have seen several in catalogs made by Grizzly, Woodtek, Delta (expensive), and Vega which has several models. Opinions on any of these would be welcome. Are there any tool reviews on these models? I understand that Sears also made one but is now out of production.
Replies
Sears still lists both of the copycrafters for 12" and 15" lathes on their web site, either Wood or American Woodworker did a review on duplicators in the last year, I'll see if I can't dig up an issue #-js
Hi Ryan
Take a look at FWW indices I seem to remember a review a couple of years ago.However remember that the shape of the cutting tool on most duplicators limits the shoulder profile you can cut(they resemble a round nose tool on a metal turning lathe)In order to get the look of hand turning you have to finish some shapes by hand or have numerical controlled tooling.Daunting as it may seem a few sets of calipers ,a pin layout board and patience you will find that you can do it by hand.I turn professionally and even for quite large runs it becomes fast.Old timers can knock out two matching chair legs in 10 mins and that's splitting them out ,drawer knifing them round and turning them on a pole lath!All it takes is Patience and practice.There is a crispness that hand turning imparts .Compare the blodgy shapes of mass production in your big box store
I'm with Jako on this one. The duplicators I have seen are slow. A skew chisel and spindle gouge will take a lot of material off in a hurry. Another thing is, you don't really have to be all that close. Nobody will spot a few hundredths of an inch one way or another unless they are looking REAL close, and perhaps not even then.
I'm not a professional turner, but I do turn professionally, occasionally duplicating parts for furniture. I just rough the parts to their largest finished diameter, then use a board with pencil notches at the high and low points of the turning to do my layout. A pin board works faster, but takes longer to make. Then I use a parting tool and calipers to cut to the proper diameter at each layout line. After that, it's basically just coves and beads............ You might take 15 or 20 minutes to do the first one, but by number twenty, you'd probably be well under ten minutes each.
One of the ways I try to save time is to pick up each tool only once, and to use as few tools as possible. You can actually rough out and turn a lot of shapes with just a skew chisel, but that's another discussion.
To answer your question, the only duplicators I have seen that work well are by Vega. I know a couple of guys that have them and are happy with them.
Michael R.
I can tell you that unless you want to invest serious dollars here and buy a high grade lathe with a professional duplicator you will not be very happy with what you can get. Your project is very doable by hand though. Whatever your lathe skills are now is irrelevant. After cutting about twenty of the same pattern you will start to get the feel of things. After fifty of them even the top professional duplicators will no longer be your match. A decent lathe and a few decent tools to get you started and then do a little reading on spindle turning before you start. Get back to the books when you have some stuff working but encounter some difficulties. Then back to the lathe again. A story stick for marking out is useful. Having several calipers preset to key diameters is also helpful or make a finger rod to set behind your lathe which has wooden fingers that revolve around the rod and you set them on top of the spindle ... when you cut the diameter to the proper depth the finger falls down past the spindle.
That finger rod idea is interesting. Got a picture....or a drawing?
Sorry Ron I have not made one of these and so do not have any photos. They are not a unique idea, many turners have used them. The system is simple but some details are important. The fingers need to be rounded on the ends so that there is no corners to catch as they swing downward. Some turners use thin plywood cams for fingers. The rod that the fingers are swinging from needs to be mounted accurately paralell to the centers on the lathe. Some sort of adjustable spacer is useful if you want to use the setup for various spindle designs. Some use curtain rods or conduits for the rod, pipes and tubes of any sort that are straight will work. A different finger length is needed for each diameter required. Fine adjustments can be made by sanding the tips of the fingers down a bit for slightly larger diameters. In use you set the fingers slightly larger than your finished diameters to allow for paring cuts and sanding etc. (these are mostly intended to give you your first set of rough diameters quickly).
I own both the sears and the vega, I bought the sears and was so unhappy I tried to return it, Sears which advertises satisfaction ...
wouldn't accept it for credit.
I bought the vega and am much happier with it.. as others have said it's far from perfect and only slightly faster than doing each one from scratch. what I liked most about the vega was the video that they sent along with it.. I felt much better after watching it than I ever did just reading the insruction book that came with the sears.
Mayber it's that no-one knows how to write good manuals anymore or the translation from whatever to chineese to english loses enough that i feel like I'm reading greek.
Anyway the key to getting the duplicator working acceptably seems to be in constant resharpening the cutting tool. what I've found works for me is to rough cut it and then resharpen it. then a close cut and resharpen and then the final cut . I leave the cutting tool on for the next rough cut..
I have a spiralgraph that allows me to cut spirals, tapers, rope, etc. and if I can figure out how to mount it without interfering with the duplicator I intend to use it first to rough cut and then switch to the duplicator. I still will need to figure out how to resharpen the router bits I use on the spirograph since I hog so much out in each pass that I tend to get the bits dulls quickly.
sure I know I could slow down but as it takes me well over an hour per spindal as it is, the time spent in reharpening saves me that much time in sanding (and I hate to sand)
frenchy I don't want to give you a hard time but I can tell you that if you had spent the same time learning how to turn with standard tools as you have with your Vega you would be making them in 20 minutes or less with MUCH less sanding too. I urge you to try it!! It is also a lot more fun!!
Clay,
I did learn how to turn by hand first. I'm not just making four legs for a table or cupboard, I'm turning 320 spindales for railings, with a long taper. (almost 30 inches)
Try making just thirty spindals with a long taper and set them up together, if you eye does get pulled to the slight differances between each one you're a better man than I am.
It is true that long fairly straight tapers are a little tricky to get accurate and it is important to have them reasonably accurate. It is also true that they are very doable by hand turning and much quicker that way than what you are doing with the vega duplicator. 4x4 spindles do take a bit longer than 2x2's just because of the amount of wood that needs to be cut away. Even so for production duplicates like you are doing they should be accomplished in about 25 to 30 minutes each in oak, and more quickly than that in softer timbers. In your specific projects case that amounts to a savings of 160 man hours or more, four weeks of work. One trick that many turners use for smoothing and paring long tapers is to set a small block plane at an angle similar to a skew and run it across the tapered area. I personally prefer a large skew or straight chisel. It is often helpful to hold a small straight edge against the taper to check for areas that may need a little more paring to be just right. Of course if the taper is not intended to be exactly straight you would use a slightly curved edge as appropriate. I don't mean to discourage your efforts, I just hate to see a good man struggling when it is unneccessary. I know that you can do these in an easier way. I am putting up a picture of a balustrade that I made of 4x4 trex spindles so that you will know that my advice is not from imaginary experience. If you can see the difference you can cut it away and eliminate it. A good trick that I have found useful is to keep one spindle as a reference piece and hold it next to the one on the lathe when it is nearly complete comparing the negative spaces between them for symmetry. Then I can make small refinements as needed.
When I was playing with the design to use I bet I carved over 20 spindales. In the end I could carve one in a little over two and a half hours. I don't really know since I seldom had two hours straight to stand at the lathe. Maybe with years of practice I might get fast enough to be able to out perform the Vega and do it as well but like most crutches it's very hard to ween yourself away from a comfortable crutch.. the simplist ones to do were those with multiple knobs and tapers like the ones you pictured. I think I finally settled on the design I did because it was so difficult to do well. a little too much/too little taper and it came out looking wrong.
I have this fear of sharpening, the wrong angle, stone speed, etc. and the tool would be ruined. I've gotten so much misinformation (at least I believe some of it has to be wrong because there are at least 30 ways to sharpen according to the responses I got, and the "experts" I spoke to.) so with better more confident sharpening maybe I'd be faster.
With a cheap bit to sharpen on the duplicator I could grind away and have it feel like it was decently sharp (and slice a nice neat shaving off the piece) without fear that I was ruining expensive tools. Perhaps that's another reason I like the duplicator.. whatever,... I know that it is tons faster to use the duplicator with the template in place then to try to replicate 320 spindales by hand..
Besides it's another tool that I own and you remember the cardinal rule of wood working don't you? (he who dies with the most tools wins)
As a self taught turner I can sympathize with your frustrations. I can remember how difficult it seemed to be at first. It is nowhere near as hard as it has seemed to you though. If you could see a skilled turner doing what you are you would be amazed. It doesn't take years to get there either. I hope that you can find a turning club in your area and meet some turners who will share some time at their lathes with you. It would open a new world for you. Richard Raffan has some nice videos out that you might find enlightening too, but there is nothing like being right beside someone who will answer your questions and coach you a bit. There is nothing wrong with the way you are doing it but I know that you would be enjoying life at your lathe much more if you felt comfortable with standard tools.
I've owned my lathe for about a year and a half now and run a lot of wood thru it. It's not about turning, it's my phobia about sharpening that really limits me..
There has been more written about it (that I've read). I've bought several sharpening systems (my latest is the Tomex) watched the demonstrations and the video's etc..
What tends to happen is I turn like crazy untill the tools get dull and then I try to sharpen them.. When that produces less than acceptable results I go looking for a new sharpening system or drag my tools over to a buddy who can sharpen..
I've come to accept my limitations.. I can't do rocket science and I have other limits too.. The duplicator just helps me work around them..
I've seen guys do freehand spirals that come out perfect, I can do acceptable ones using my router and spiral adaptor, but let metry it freehand and I'll make a mess of it..
Now maybe it's training wheels or maybe the "real" turners don't stoop to such but for me I can make what i want if I use the crutches..
without them I'm never going to be able to dedicate the time it takes to master that craft..
After reading the other posts, I decide to hang back and see if it was just a practice thing; so the reference on duplicators is pgs 32-37 in FWW "Lathes and Turning Techniques", it's one of their "best of" series, and lists specs and some comments on 15 different duplicators. That being said,(or written), I really liked Conovers' book, and its' section on sharpening- it seems most people are willing to drop alot of $ on their turning tools, but Harbor Freight sells a basic set of HSS tools for about $20.00, for that price you can put some serious practice into your sharpening, heck, you can lose an inch off the end if you need. Soon, you'll see a post about over-heating and losing temper on the steel, if your uncomfortable re-tempering your $20.00 set-just grind (slooowly) past the part that discolored and start over. Once your confident with the sharpening process, then use the high dollar tools. I use the Veritas System, and just constantly touch up the tools as needed-good luck -js
<< sure I know I could slow down but as it takes me well over an hour per spindal as it is, the time spent in reharpening saves me that much time in sanding (and I hate to sand) >>
Clay's advice is sound. I'm just an occasional turner, but I can attest to the fact that sharp tools used correctly on good wood give you a finish that needs little or no sanding. You have to slice, not scrape, and make your finishing cuts nice and light. I've worked on a lot of antiques where the legs and spindles are hand turned, and as often as not, they have never been sanded.
As for speed, I'm not even close to half as quick as someone who turns all the time, But I can knock out a set of 4x4 table legs in less than two hours, and when I have to make a bunch of similar spindles like chair legs, they get pretty quick after the first few -- well under 10 mijnutes each. Bannisters take longer because there is more length to cut, and they get a little whippy as well, but three or four an hour is pretty easy.
I like Mike Darlow's book, The Practice of Woodturning, because he shows a lot of really good techniques for working quickly when turning spindles.
Michael R.
Yes of course you need to slice the wood off that's exactly why I sharpen as often as I do.
What I find so difficult to achieve by hand is a constant taper. My spindals are much fatter than any I've seen (they're made from 4x4's rather than 2x2's) and that allows me to be very creative. but they taper at the top from around two inches to the full four inches and that's over a thirty inch length. If that taper isn't perfect it shows and looks bad.. when you make just four legs and seperate them with a cabinet or table slight differances don't show up, however when you line them up right next to each other and there are thirty forty or more spindals in a row they all better be exact or your eye spots the flaw and pulls it to it.. then the rest of your life you cringe whenever you see them..
ps, I've own Mike's book and you are correct it has some good tips.. nothing however beats practice. maybe by the time I'm finished with my house I'll be good enough..
I have not used a duplicator but from what I've read I would say the Vega might be the best.
But like all the others are saying you are not going to get the fine cuts you want and end up doing a lot of work by hand.
I'm way far from being a good turner but have learned a few things that work for me when making lots of spindles-
say you are making 20 of the same spindle have 25 blanks ready "I screw up"- when you start take your time plan out your cuts follow the same steps in order on each spindle. As you make more spindles you will get faster and your eye for sizes -
seems like I do better on the right half of the spindle so I turn from center to the right end and turn it end for end and finish turning. -
I like using open ended wrenches when I can instead of calipers like on small parts of the turnings or tenons and get a great fit.
Use a story stick same length as the spindle and square lines across so you can lay out each one alike and its fast.
Keep your tools sharp and have good light over the work where you don't get shadows.
If the distances the same no one will notice if you are off a little on the dia.
Who Ever Has The Biggest Pile Of Tools When You Die Wins
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