Which Midi lathe?

And if you're going to do small stuff from dowel stock that could be a problem. BUT - if you do small stuff in interesting woods - which aren't available in dowel stock - then you might have a chance - purple heart, padouk, "snake wood", "leopard (sp?) wood", "lacewood", claro walnut, bubinga, rosewood, african black wood, ironwood, yellow heart/ canary wood - none available in dowel form.

If you want to add another wood, drill a shallow hole in the top of a drawer pull, glue in a round of a contrasting wood and turn to flush with the top of the pull. A 1/4" tapered plug cutter and a drill press could give you a quick way to make them out of any wood you can find. If want to get fancy, use the same idea but glue in brass - uncoated welding rod or aluminum rod turned flush might be interesting. If you have a chuck with indexing capability you could drill a series of small holes and glue in silver or even gold wire and turn it flush to the wood to produce a circle of shiny metal in the wood.

Still not sure about the need for a quick change chuck and a 5/8" ID drive spindle. You can mount square or close to square blanks between centers, rough to round pretty quickly then turn most of you knob, pull or chess pieces. Then chuck one end of the resulting work, part off the left most piece, finish the end, remove it and chuck up and part off the next part and so on.

Depending on the form of the wood you're starting with either a bandsaw or a table saw will probably become a necessity. If you start with firewood or mini-logs, the bandsaw is a must. If you're starting with 3/4" or 1" boards, then a table saw would be a must. Neither has so be Industrial Strength machines, but either one will run $500+. The wood might be free, but getting it into a useable shape isn't. I guess I was lucky in that I had the machines for furniture making BEFORE I got hooked on turning.

I noted this earlier, but turning is a very slippery slope. They should give away the small lathes cause they're gonna make 5 times that on the "accessories" and tools, sharpening "systems", sanding supplies and tools and finishes.

Ultimately, it seems that ALL types of woodworking cost you $5,000 - minimum. The wood then adds to the price tag. But - in the long run, it's probably the cheapest form of therapy and mental health maintenance.

charlie b

Spend some more time looking and you'll find a LOT more and better info on the web. But finding the really basic stuff - the things the people who write books and articles and do videos and DVDs just assume "everybody knows" - the "common knowledge stuff not worth mentioning" is a bit harder. THAT's where the fill in the gaps stuff I put together initially for my own use comes in. Once I've done my own instructions, the time and effort to put it on the web is neglible. My hope is that others will go through some of it, think "If even this guy can do it - well then I sure as hell can!" - and then do it, succeeding on the first or second try. It's those first few attempts that can either turn someone on or turn someone off to a type of woodworking.

That's what I'd hoped. PLEASE add notes and questions as you use the instructions. If there are holes in the process or ambiguities note them and e-mail them to me. I'll revise the instructions as needed in hopes that they'll get better and make it easier for others.

I'll be revising the instructions to have the hollowing start with the top of the box because it's curve makes it easy to turn through the top of the top while hollowing. By starting with the top, should you blow through the lid, you can either scrap that box and start a new one or plug the hole and do some reshaping. No point starting by hollowing the bottom and THEN blow through the top.

Have started adding a contrasting wood "foot" to my boxes and am still working out size, shape and proportions. So now I'm doing 6 part boxes - top and bottom, top finial, inside lid, inside finial and separate "foot". Have one I'm working on now that adds a 7th part - making the top's finial in two different woods, one over the other.

I started turning "between centers" so I turned a lot of shapes and combinations of shapes before I got to turning finials for my lidded boxes. By making the finials "add ons" I can try different finials on a piece and see which one looks right - or what modification of one I've done would work better.

The difference between a nice piece and a technically correct but Ho-Hum piece is practice. If you finish a piece and it doesn't look quite right study it a bit and figure out why. Then do another one - with the improve- ments. After a while you'll come up with shapes and proportions that please you and then it's variations and evolution time. Along the way you'll find tools that work for you and their use will become second nature. After a while you'll begin to see when a curve or bead or cove looks right or doesn't look right for the piece. Practice both the "eye" and the hand and soon things will begin to "just happen".

The fun thing about woodworking, and turning especially, is that "Did I make that!?" experience. I think everyone has a gift to help bring beautiful things into existence. If I can help make those experiences happen then I'm a happy camper.

Please add notes as you use the instructions. Critique the hell out of them and send it along. That way the next person has an easier time of it.

What you use to get there isn't significant. It's getting there that's the goal.

Feel free to "borrow" anything I've done so far. I'm of the Steve Jobs school - steal ideas and steal from the best. To put it another way - there's no such thing as "creativity", it's actually "synthesis" - combining existing things in a way they've not been combined before. Whatever IT is, it sure is fun.

Thanks for the feed back- and PLEASE TAKE NOTES!

charlie belden san jose, ca

I think I speak for all the guys that responded, "anytime". Unlike a lot of nwesgroups and forums, this one is a winner with lots of good folks and talented craft people.

Just post again when you need some help, as someone here always responds.

Robert

....

that's close to my ratio, I think it was more 4:1 though, plus the $2500 for the "upgrade" lathe

.....

Depends. I haven't actually done this for wood lathes, but cutters for metal lathes can be less than a dollar. You can shape it with grinding wheels, tool cutters, diamond rotary tools, files, etc.

If you have a curved profile - say radius curve, you could cut the profile easily. The you have to hold it in place. You can get drill rod and shape it into a custom cutter.

The Steb center can be expensive. The rotating one is the most expensive of the set, and necessary for changing pieces while the lathe is running.

Thanks. I checked General Maxi Lathe25-200 this morning. Since the package is over 15' it will be ship via common carrier. For model 25-200, over $600 and $299 for model

The swivel head alone is worth the extra money, DAMHIKT :-). And then there's the variable speed, bigger swing, longer bed, more HP, ...

And I can't believe it requires a fifteen foot long packge :-).

It's also available from Woodcraft for, IIRC, $529.

Hi Charlie B,

I am amazed at the wealth of information you have at your website. I will be popping in every spare moment before and after we move into a 3bds house. I will busy making a completely new kitchen a bathroom and maybe a year later adds another bedroom. I got the two cars' garage for my woodworking , my wife a bedroom for her craft shop and the living room will be my kid study room.

While planning for the move and shopping for woodworking machineries, I am also looking for lumbers and plywood in the SFO and surrounding areas. Do you know any lumberyard where I could buy "reasonable" price roughed sawn hard Maple, Oak, furniture grade plywood and rough sawn railroad tie lumber (6/4x8')?

Thank you.

Repost. Oops heading should be Charlieb.

Hi Charlie B,

I am amazed at the wealth of information you have at your website. I will be popping in every spare moment before and after we move into a 3bds house. I will busy making a completely new kitchen a bathroom and maybe a year later adds another bedroom. I got the two cars' garage for my woodworking , my wife a bedroom for her craft shop and the living room will be my kid study room.

While planning for the move and shopping for woodworking machineries, I am also looking for lumbers and plywood in the SFO and surrounding areas. Do you know any lumberyard where I could buy "reasonable" price roughed sawn hard Maple, Oak, furniture grade plywood and rough sawn railroad tie lumber (6/4x8')?

Thank you.

Turner wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not charlieb, but I'm in the SF Bay Area.

Check out

I missed an earlier post, I guess. Where are you landing?

Patriarch

Actually, it's the fact that I spread it out that makes it look like there's more than actually there. I'm a visual learner so there are plenty of pictures, diagrams and illustrations - all of which take up more page space than a bunch of text. I also include stuff that's probably "common knowledge" but I'd rather have too much info than just enough to get myself in trouble.

If you're going to do ply and face frame cabinets with maybe raised panel doors I'd seriously look into Festools plunge saw and straight edge guide. Great for dealing with 3x8 sheets of ply and with accessories will also do miter cuts etc.. That and a good router, with router table and fence will let you do cope and stick raised panel doors.

You'll find that a 2 car garage can get kind of cramped as time goes on and tools and wood are accumulated.

That's three distinctly different places. For hardwoods and exotics there's Global Wood Source in North San Jose. Baker Hardwoods is in Morgan Hill but he's By Appointment Only. Specializes in claro walnut but has lots of other stuff as well - and a big horizontal bandsaw so he can cut to order - for a price of course.

For baltic birch ply and furniture grade hardwood veneered ply there's Aura Plywood near downtown San Jose. The rail road ties - I've no idea.

Welcome to the SF Bay Area - a den of equity

For machines - checkout Tool Land in San Carlos. Funky, crammed to the ceiling with machines, tools etc. place but they carry all sorts of machines - including Festool.

No problem.