Has anyone ever heard of using a metal working lathe for turning wood? My father used to have his own machine shop that went down the tubes 15 years ago, and he still has all of the machines stored in his garage. I’ve been thinking about talking him into letting me “store” one of the lathes for him. What would the pros and cons be ?
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WhenI lived in So. Cal. I belonged to woodworkers club and we visited a shop that built pool cues. All the machines he used were metal working machines.
His work was flawless. The cues started at $600 and went up. They all had inlay of some sort. The high end ones had semi-precious stones in them.
I think the only downside would be that there are lots of nooks and crannies to catch lots of wood chips and dust. Wood lathes tend to be uncluttered and open.
Tod, Jump at the chance. If you can jump and chew gum at the same time you can do anything on a metalworking lathe.
You can make one of a kind objects, or one hundred identical objects almost as easily. Tell your dad to show you the basics and if you have a choice, take the lathe with the most tooling and insist on quick change.
Don't worry about a little sawdust. If you just want to turn freehand with wood turning tools( Skews/Gouges/ cut off tools) you'll have to make a simple tool rest that clamps to the lathe's bed and is adjustable in, out, up,down and left or right.
Sounds tricky, but it's fairly simple. Stein.
Edited 11/15/2003 6:26:15 PM ET by steinmetz
Todd,
What the hell are you waiting for? Grab them while you can! Grab one for me!
About seven years ago my wife came home and told me I had to see the shop of her friend's grandfather. Zet (and yes that was his given name...you can't make that stuff up...) was an 80 year old, retired electrician and I'm here to tell you...he had one of the coolest shops I have EVER seen. A LIFETIME of jigs...a LIFETIME of tools he had retrofited to do this or that. But the end all beat all was his metal lathe. He had retro an old metal lathe to work wood...he could make that lathe do everything short of sing a song.
If you are reading this you need to get up from your chair, get in your car and lay claim to one of those lathes....
No, I serious...GO...NOW...
One thing to think about on a metal lathe is that all the ways and gibbs are lubed and in time will want to gum up from the dust from wood. If you were going to use it for a wood lathe I would take the complete toolpost assembly and carriage off the bed ways and make a tool rest and holder to use Turning tools with the lathe. Check out the spindle size and thread and make sure you can get face plates and a chuck to fit it. If it is an oddball size you can always have some made at a machine shop. Also if it has a gear box to change the leadscrew speed, some thing you would not need for wood turning, but would collect dust and tend to gum up also. Hey a wood lathe is just a metal lathe stripped down to the bare!
Good luck KK
My dad still works as a machinist, and has made quite a few things for my woodworking in the past.
I'm sure he would make me some faceplates. There are a couple of chucks that are still in a box in storage, along with all the tooling for the lathe.
We're moving in a month and the new house has an attached garage and a detached garage that has a gas furnace, 60amp breaker box, three windows and a single car garage door. Which means that I will have room for more tools, And both my wife and I will both be able to park in the garage.
Sure...works just fine...but messy to do both wood and metal....all those wood shavings mixed in with cutting oil make for a machine-clogging, unpleasant mess.
I used a North Bend (?) metal lathe to turn 1" dia handles out of walnut many yrs ago. It works fine for cylinders and tapers(if the lathe is set up for tapers) but remember that a WL works different from a ML. On a ML the tool holder follows either a manual or automatic lead screw, in a straight line, unless you've got a $200K+ CNC machine, and the cutter is locked into the tool holder. On a WL you are the tool holder, and can move the cutter in 3 dimensions. ML cutters are short, so you have limited in and out capacity. If you want to do a bowl or a goblet on a ML, you'ld have to rig up a strong sliding moveable rest for your chisels. If you're a fair welder, this can be done, but it will ruin the lathe for doing wood. Considering the prices of MLs vs. WLs, you're better off selling the ML and using the $ to buy a WL.
I use my metal lathe to turn wood. All that cast iron makes for a very smooth and vibration free lathe. The lead screw? Keep it. I use mine to turn threads on turned box tops. I use a router with a special bit to make the threads while I advance the lead screw very slowly but it makes for nice screw top containers. Sawdust does sometimes mix with the cutting oils but I find that it is easily cleaned. What is a problem is the saw dust carries off the protective lub oil on the ways and can expose the metal to corrosion. Just hafta spray lube the ways more often. Is the lathe too small for your work? Well that depends on the lathe and how big you want to work. Mine is a 9 inch swing Atlas with a 36 inch bed. The 9 inch swing can be a drawback when I'm turning 15 pound mallet heads and it limits the size of bowl I can turn. Sure I'd like to have a bigger lathe. I always want bigger but the small lathe does 98% of what I want to do.
The tool post holder works great for cylinders and is sometimes useful for roughing. You need to learn to grind the tool bits at a different angle for wood. Most times I just mount a tool rest and use a gough like a regular wood lathe.
Go for it. You will never be sorry.
BJGardening, cooking and woodworking in Southern Maryland
Todd -
A friend of mine makes and repairs bagpipes. Out of blackwood (that's what he calls it). He uses a metal turning lathe with carbide bits. Does beautiful stuff.
If you don't want the lathe, let me know - I'll drop by and take it off your hands (grin)
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
One thing that wasn't mentioned is that metal lathes have lower RPM's than wood lathes, so you'd either need to change the gearing, or use a VFD if you want to turn small objects that require high speeds. Even still, I have used a metal lathe for wood turning and they are amazing. You can do things you couldn't even think about with a wood lathe, and with a power feed they can make custom sized doweling with ease. like others have said, you'd need to make a special rest as well so that you can use normal wood turning tools with it but that's no big deal. Also, keep the lathe clean so it will maintain it's accuracy and you can dry cut metal (no coolant) with carbide tools. the last thing you want is for saw dust to get into the wrong places, such as the headstock and powerfeed mechanism.
Andrew
PS, the hollow headstock on a metal lathe is absolutely wonderful if you have to drill holes in the end of dowels.
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