metal bowl turning question

Hi Dave here's one link for you

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Sure, try here. They sell brass, pewter, and copper disks.

FWIW,

Greg G.

I'm sure it was covered in the DIY piece, but it may be well to remind anyone making shop made blanks that Al, Cu, pewter, brass, etc. flow, anneal, work harden and even lube differently. Particularly from steel sheet metal.

Leo or Alan or someone else can better explain.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

That's acually "spinning", not turning. Although I expect that spinning is what Dave actually wanted. I doubt many wood laths could machine a block of aluminum into a bowl. Spinning a sheet is, well, much easier.

Hi Arch

I already get sore fingers thinking of typing out all thats needed to know, so as to be able to turn/spin metal. There is more to it than just sticking a disk between centers, but one can experiment, read up on it, and even take lessons. Ernie Conover in his book Turning a bowl has a chapter on pewter spinning. Paul Wiley gives one to one tutoring or did, I have a link for those interested.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

>> =metal%20spinning%20blank&Page=1 >> >

You're right, I just assumed that spinning is what he really wanted. I can't imagine trying to turn a solid block of aluminum on a wood lathe. A CNC metal lathe, however, is another story. Question is, who wants a 4 pound aluminum bowl?

I would like to try metal spinning one day, it looks pretty neat. I don't, however, feel the need to spend $250+ _more_ on shaping tools, HDMW mandrel blocks, and other such niceties, only to find that my tiny lathe won't cut the mustard. :-\

Greg G.

Actually you can turn metal, especialy bronze and softer metals but even steel, even on my Mini jet. Obviously you can't turn the sizes of wood that can be turned on the same lathe, but small sized pieces can be.

Believe me, your HSS tools can cut steel (they are much stronger than it - I found out by accidentally cutting my Talon chuck :-( ), and your lathe is strong enough to turn it. Obviously there are more security hazards, and doing metal free-form (as most wood lathes don't have a slide rest) can be very hard - but doable. Also recomended is cutting fluid (to cool the metal down). But I'm far from an expert on this subject, so I won't recommend anything to you.

BTW metal spining does sound cool - I ordered Paul Wiley's book, and will attempt it one day. From what I understand, it is also possible on wood lathes, but again I'm no expert or even beginer on this one.

Dear Dave,

Highland Hardware,

has the metal spinning tools, and offers three pages of msetal spinning supplies starting at they offer copper, brass, and pewter disks in 3", 5", the burnishers in sets, with videos and separately, the medtasl spinning tool rests with indexing pins and the specialty wax. JimC

Well, I'm no expert, but I saw the program on the DIY network, and then a similar one on the Science channel a couple of days later, and they were spinning big aluminum sauce pots with the same tools and techniques out of pretty thick stock. (looked to be about 3/8", unless the guy on the tv was just really little) I'd guess you can do it with whatever thickness material you like, and just have to work harder at pressing the thick stuff into shape.

Metal spinning is normally done on metal of about 1mm thickness. Even that is fairly hard. 3/8" would be next to impossible, I would guess.

Steve

Pretty much all the info you need on the bbs forum for beginers and pros