lathe construction information

If you're just starting out on a budget, and intent on using what you have on hand, then the furnace motor will work fine for a while. Later, you can upgrade to a TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled) motor after the fan motor burns out, or go with DC or variable-frequency AC if you can afford it.

High RPMs for little things like pens--maybe 3000 RPM or more. And for big stuff like bowls, you can't have too low of an RPM. I mean, try to get as low as you can with your pulley setup. The new (sort of new) variable-speed drives combined with multi-step pulleys can go down to a crawl, great for sanding with a rotating pad held in a portable drill or applying finishes on the lathe.

Don't know of any FAQ for this group, but there's zillions of woodturning websites--my favorite is Brian Clifford's, lots of good info for beginners and experienced-- at:

around on the AAW website and look for the chapter website listings, you can spend hours. I do the website for our local chapter in Wisconsin, and try to keep a good listing of links at: to know what kind of lathe you have, is it a shop-made unit or factory-made?

I used to run a big old Oliver patternmaker's lathe, with a 2 ft swing and 8 ft between centers. The AC induction motor was kinda big, about

16" in diameter, with an RPM of 750. I turned 200 lb. logs of cherry and walnut into thin-walled African-style percussion drum shells, ending up with about 195 lbs of shavings on the floor. I still have pangs of guilt for wasting all that wood.

Ken Grunke

I can visualize machinist at a paper mill making his own lathe. They are known to be very meticulous. I do not know your mechanical orientation? Bottom line is to find what you have, identify your need and compare the cost of finishing the lathe vs. buying a working lathe. Your present electrical hook up should be taking into account when building or selecting a lathe I take it that you have the stand made as a welded construction. First, drawings and a Bill of Material showing what is there have to be made. Then you have to make up your mind of what you want as a lathe. At that stage, you may find out that to finish to original design may cost you more than buying a lathe to fit your needs. I would suggest that you get an old Boston Gears Catalogue, Dodge or better a Machinery's handbook. This will assist you in sizing the pulleys and Horse power requirement. You should start your design for 100 RPM or less. An automobile hydraulic choc is a good devise to assist the motor mounting base. After you have made your bill of material. Visits at the local scrap yard may turned out to be fruitful. The bearings have to be new or in a very good condition! I prefer bearings that have been ground in pairs. Check the electrical shops that rewinds motors and price what they have. The 1/2 HP furnace motor you have may be sufficient to toy around. The probability is that this furnace motor had a full life and may give out anytime. On the other hand you may be please to use it as a prototype to identify you need.

"Ken Grunke" wrote in message news:3fa618c2$1 snipped-for-privacy@corp.newsgroups.com...

Dear woodturner please go to Yahoo groups and look for the SHOPBUILDTOOLS group they are a great bunch of guys they will help ED

Hi,

The lathe is totally shop built. I could tell you a lot more about it if I knew all the terminology! So that's my main limitation. It's a twin-belt drive headstock, tailstock is mostly complete except for the ability to clamp it down and also to screw the center to tighten onto the piece (low on vocab here, sorry!). It's heavily built, nice welds, finely machined. It also lacks a toolrest. Unfortunately the old gentleman passed away before I was able to ask him where he was going with it...

It's on a fairly heavy duty wood stand, not a metal one. Looks like he had outboard turning ability in mind too. What's neat is that I have an old gentleman (Charlie) in a village down the road who's working on finishing it. He's the same type of guy - a wizard of a machinist. He showed me a drill press he built -- said one day he came across a little rod that looked like a good handle for a drill press -- so he built a drill press to match!

Another poster asked about my mechanical inclination - it's fairly good I think, but I lack metalworking tools and experience. That's where Charlie comes in -- decades of experience and some heavy duty equipment.

I'll try and get pics of it up on a.b.p.w. when it's done.

Thanks for suggestions so far. Caleb

It sounds like you would enjoy machine design and building. At your stage with what you have on hand my suggestion is to select a good a electrical motor. The heavy duty lathe used for large burls are equipped with a minimum 2HP

"calebsg" snipped-for-privacy@pamhotmail.com

For a small, self-built lathe, you can swap motors in and out--nothing cast in stone so far as the question of power source goes.

Small (U. S.) motors usually run 1750 or thereabouts rpms, so you probably need to run your headstock spindle from a "jackshaft" (a step pulley on an arbor shaft) between motor and lathe, so you can step spindle rotation up and down from the 1750 RPM of the motor shaft, a common device.

In the interim, a good source of information would be to get familiar with operating any other lathes, to learn what they have for internal workings--store bought, scratch built, or older forms. Frank Morrison

out the variable speed dc motor on the sale mentioned