In the recent issue of Woodworkers Journal they showed an offsettable live center. I tried googling it and did not find a source for one. Has anyone here used such a thing or know where to purchase one? I have a friend that would love to have one for turning table legs.
Regards Paul Geving snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
Typically, multi-axis or eccentric spindle turning does not call for any sort of special drive or live center -- one simply applies a standard center to multiple off-center positions during the turning process. The exception would be work such as shown by Jean François Escoulen which uses a true eccentric chuck. He sells such a chuck and IIRC Sorby used to sell one too.
Which issue of WJ shows this technique? Have you asked them or the author who should be reachable through their website?
It was in the last issue. On the last few pages they have a mystery tool "contest" and the last issues mystery tool turned out to be an offsettable live center. It looked like it would be a drastically cheaper alternative to an eccentric chuck. The friend I was referring to wanted to make some table legs with a turned foot. He offset the center on the tail end to turn the foot and that was all fine but he could not get any reliable repeatability doing it that way. The offsettable live center they showed would be ideal for his application.
Regards Paul Geving snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
He could buy or borrow a Shopsmith... they come with an "eccentric" mount for the live center.. I never knew that it was for that, so always kept it set to zero...
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I agree with John. Simply move the piece to one or more positions on either the live or drive center. A little spooky at first but it works and is free. Save your money for other toys. Bob.
I attended a lathe demo in November at a local Woodcraft store. The gentleman doing the turning showed us how to do the layout for off-center turning for cabriole legs for a highboy or other such pieces. He turned 2 real quick out of poplar and from the naked eye you couldn't tell the difference. Since i am a rookie to turning I didn't write anything down but that could be a source of information to check. The one thing you need to remember when turning this type of leg is that they all face different directions.
I'm never lost, someone is always telling me where to go...
Yes it was a cabriole leg that he was trying for(couldn't think of the name till you mentioned it). It sounds like he needs a better measuring system as opposed to a better/different tool. Though he does tend to subscribe to the theory that he who dies with the most toys wins. Thank you all for your thoughts on this.
Regards Paul Gev> I attended a lathe demo in November at a local Woodcraft store. The
If you are in the uk, try Chronos, or Warco. Don't know if they still hold them, one or other had them on their stand at a model engineer exhibition , some years ago.Myford used to sell offsettable centres for their lathes, for taper turning.Don't know if they still do. Like most tools for "engineering", they're not cheap.
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