uneven wood moisture

No fun turning one of those pieces that have been laying on the ground, as I suspect yours may have. Had a chunk of spruce which had been down, was split - not by me - so that each of the two halves was wet on one side, dry on the other. I just kept working it until I got it thin enough so that the mass of the lathe held it against vibration.

Is yours a piece turned along the grain? If so, delay is almost certainly a recipe for failure. If across, probably a recipe for failure unless you get it coated or turned quickly. You've nothing to lose, really, as long as you feel safe with the piece, in turning it to a rough thickness. It'll help control a wet piece to remove weight. With heavily spalted stock you'll want to be careful not to hack out wet and weak rotted areas. Try to cut them cleanly with a sharp edge.

Hi Rich

Rich I bet that wood sat on the ground and all the water sits on one side of the wood, spalting tends to do that, that sure makes for an unbalanced blank. Your lathes lowest speed is what ?? If you let it dry you probably will end up with a split blank, I would drill a hole in the blank to the depth that you want to hollow, and then start turning, you will loose a lot of water quickly and your lathe will settle down as more and more wood and water is removed. Just use your tailstock to help steady the wood and take your time turning. With the spalting it could be a real nice bowl with some luck and care.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

res055a5 wrote:

i don't think the tree laid on the ground for too long...probably not more than 3 weeks. the spalting seems to be all on one side though. i will take your advice and rough turn it soon. i have the end grain sealed. my lathe's slowest speed is about 900 rpm...using the motor rpm and the outside of both pulleys diameters... wish it was 800 rpm. sometimes it seems to go a little fast. rich

Hi Rich Can you not change the speed ?? If that's right what you say, 900 rpm Rich that's way to fast, really You better do something about that, other motor , pulley or lathe. A 10" bowl blank should not turn half that speed to start roughing out. No wonder your lathe acting like a bucking bronco, You can turn on that but if you have some weak spot or split in your turning it'll explode, keep that in mind, and stay out of the firing zone.

Have fun but do take care Leo Van Der Loo

res055a5 wrote:

i have an old high school Delta wood lathe with a 4 ganged pulley on the shaft. there is no room for a larger pulley; so the only thing i could do is slow the motor or use a jack shaft to provide additional down gearing. the motor runs at

I've got a 46-204, and though Delta says 600 it computes to ~767 (2.0/4.5@1725). As to a "better" lathe, Difficult to imagine anything out there today built like that old beast costing less than a couple grand, perhaps more. I've been swinging 12" capacity up to eight or nine inch deep pieces on him for years by letting the belt slip.

Still, it's an issue of safety - how well do you have it secured, how well your stand is configured - and your personal assessment of risk.

I don't know what model Delta/Rockwell lathe this is....has a serial number but no model number. the lathe is not secured to my house floor, but is quite heavy and is mounted well to the stand and i've put some weight on the stand bottom board. however, do you measure the inside of the pulleys where the belt touches or the outside of the pulleys? if i estimate the thickness of the belt to be half an inch and subtract that from each diameter and do the math; then the shaft rpm goes down to

Inside/outside makes no difference if the pulleys are sized for the belt in use. It'll be just about the same depth in each. When you say school lathe, and 10.5 piece size, I think of the classic 12" 46-2XX head

neither of them look exactly like mine...mine doesn't have a gap in the bed just in front of the headstock. otherwise it looks like the first picture: the

Sounds like you've got some sort of a pulley mismatch. Ratios should come out the same. No gap in the bed, though. What's the swing of the lathe? The 46-230 has no gap, but the pulleys aren't shielded, either. Are yours?

Nonetheless, at the 788 minimum, mine's been spinning for years. I don't take chances, using both head and tail stock, plus, I don't stand in front of the spinning work, but rather cut from the ends. Take a peak at how I work around the limits at

Hi Rich

Rich you use the outside dimension of the pulley, that's where the cords of the belt are, and the rest of the belt is rubber and changes shape/lenght as it flexes going around the pulleys. If your smallest pulley is 2" on the motor and the largest is 4 1/4" on your lathe, then your lathe turns approx. 800 rpm with a 1725 rpm motor, pretty fast, however there are motors around with 2 or even 3 speeds, used as furnace motors or washing machine motors, their lowest speed is not very low mind you, but even if they go to 1300 rpm would make some real difference, that would bring it down to approx. 600 rpm. Of course if you place a jack shaft in between you could bring that down to almost any speed you want. Looked up address for a motor I have an E-mail address for a surplus center, 3/4 hp motor 1140 rpm $70.- Hope the E-mail address works, that would bring your speed down to about

Rich wrote snip

used cole jaws for it off ebay, but otherwise only have the normal jaws that come with it.

so i tried using an old washing machine motor, but it wasn't powerful enough to do the job....kept overheating and turning off. the motor i use now is just barely powerful enough for it....1/2 hp. but at least it doesn't turn off from overheating. rich

overheating.

I use the parting tool and/or a bowl gouge to trim it thin, then break and cut down, leaving a "button" center bottom to scrape and/or sand. If you cut all the way across, you risk turning an outie into an innie, because the last part sometimes twists and pulls.

The NOVA with 50mm will certainly hold anything you can turn on a 12" lathe, unless you're into long goblets or such, then you'd be better to pick some bigger (outside dovetail) jaws or a steady. The Cole jaws are nice for some light work, but I don't generally use 'em. If I'm going to decorate a bottom a bit, I use a recess, decorate, then leave it.

I upgraded to a 3/4 horse on my lathe a few years back, when I bought the 1 HP for the bandsaw. Moved its old 1725 over to Ol' Blue. Had to buy a new lower cone pulley, since the shaft on the 3/4 was 5/8, not 1/2. It's not really as important to cutting to have a big motor, just for hogging. I occasionally slip the belt when hogging, but the key to a good smooth job is cutting, and that takes very little from the motor, just some extra time from me.