What turning speeds does a wood lathe need?
Greetings…I have an old lathe from the 50’s I inheritied. It has no motor. It appears a 1.5 HP/1750 RPM motor is the right choice. But since I have to buy a pulley it makes me wonder what size(es) to get to achive the proper speeds for turning. The headstock has a 4-step pulley. I can imagine a corresponding 4-step pulley on the motor. Presumably, I’d want to reduce the 1750 RPM, correct? I noticed a post elewhere that said 500 RPM might be dangerously slow. So here are 2 questions I hope you can help with:
1. What speeds will I need to support, roughly? I can see me turning table legs and drawer pulls. I don’t envision me trying to turn big bowls or large table tops. So what’s a good spped range to shoot for? Do I need MORE the 1750 RPM?
2. My drill press has 3, 4-step pulleys in series such that I can get 12 speeds. Is it worth the bother to create an arrangement like that here? Are a larger number of available speeds necessary or highly desirable? Or is this massive overkill?
Thanks for you thoughts…glenn
Replies
Speed
I have a 4 speed rockwell with a belt driven step pully. I used the lower speed only when mounting something heavy or off center - example.... a bowl blank that I had cut off the corners but needed to turn slow to true up. Today the machines come with electronic control speed settings - I think they start at zero. I haven't done bowl turning in years so now l'm only making spindles, legs, or pulls and I have the pully on the fastest setting both for turning and sanding. I never found anything dangerous regarding the slower setting on mine?
SA
Thanks for your comments
Mine is an old Rockwell lathe, too, I will stick to the simple plan. I read someplace in here that 1200RPM seemed about right and that fits well with the 1750RPM motor.
thanks again!
G
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