"My First Lathe" stories

[Rick Doganiero]

Talking with many woodturners over the years I am amused by their first lathe experience stories. Many humerous, some scary, but all told with passion like they were reliving the moment. So I thought I would start this post with my first lathe stories and hope you will add yours.

Rick D


MY FIRST LATHE STORY:

My first lathe experience was at Pennsauken Junior High School, Pennsauken, NJ 1976. Mr. N was the shop teacher. All the students were busy making the standard small shelf project. In the corner of the woodshop stood 2 Powermatic 90's that no one EVER touched. I was fascinated by these machines and would always go over and look at them. Mr. N must have noticed my interest so one day he calls me over.

He says, "Doganiero, do you want to try the lathe?". I sheepishly answer yes. He them starts to explain to me the parts of the lathe: head stock, tail stock, tool rest, banjo, speed control, etc. He mounts a 2" x 2" pine spindle blank betweens centers and gives me some very basic instructions (that I can no longer remember). Then before I start he says to me:

"You have to make sure the tail stock is tight". "Always check the tail stock to make sure it hasnt' loosened... Do you understand???". "If you don't check the tailstock the piece of wood will come loose, fly of the lathe and go right through your heart!".

Then he hands me the tool (a spindle gouge) and says.... "Have fun!".

I didn't know what I was doing, but had a great time doing it. It planted the woodturng seed in my soul.

Rick D

 

[Rick Doganiero]

My second "First Lathe" story

OK…. Here is my second “First†lathe story. It is the story of the first lathe that I purchased.

15 years have passed since my first lathe experience in junior high school. I’m married, have a kid and moved into a house with a 2 car garage / wood shop. I started acquiring woodworking tools and machinery. Driving home one day I came across a yard sale and lying against a fence was a Sears Craftsman lathe (the one with the single pole for ways). I purchase the lathe and the carbon steel tools (Buck Bros.) for about $40.

I arrive home all excited and mount the only wood I had available at the time, pressure treated 4x4 post, between centers. I check the tailstock to make sure it was tight (see prior first lathe story) and started turning with a gouge that was probably as sharp as a shovel. It was a very unpleasant and violent experience as I remember it, not at all like my high school lathe experience. I persevered trying to turn this wood into a pressure treated masterpiece then…. POW!!!!! The wood flies off the lathe, knocks my face shield off and cuts the side of my neck before continuing its flight across the shop. I look down at my gouge and it is bent 90 degrees. I checked the lathe and found that the threads on the tailstock were stripped and with all the vibration the tailstock came loose and the piece flew off (Mr. N was right).

A week later I am at a woodworking show in Southern NJ and come across a booth of a company form Missouri selling and demonstrating the Tormek grinder, various Swiss wood working machines and a Record lathe. The fellow hands me a newly sharpened gouge and asks me if I want to try it on the lathe. I show him the scar on my neck and explain my experience. He assures me this experience will be different. So I step up to the Record (CL3) lathe with a sharp tool and green wood mounted between centers and started to turn. I was almost a religious experience, even better than junior high school. I immediately bought the Record lathe and tools, a Tormek grinder and a Kitty band saw.

From that moment on I was hooked on woodturning. I put the lathe tools down for a few years when live intervened, however, rekindled the passion over the past few years. The Record lathe resides in the town I live, purchased by another woodturning club member. I has a warm place in my heart.

Rick D

 

[john lucas]

My first lathe was an electric drill mounted upside down on my workbench. the speed was controlled using a hose clamp that fit over the handle and switch. I used 2 scraps of wood fastened together in an L shape for my tool rest. that was clamped to the workbench alone with the drill.
I used sharpened screwdrivers to turn some cabinet knobs for a cabinet I had built.

 

[robo hippy]

John,
My first lathe was similar to yours. I needed some mushroom drawer pulls for a table I was making, cut the head off a screw, chucked that up in the drill press, screwed on a block, used my bench chisels and a block of wood for a tool rest. Flat work has gone down hill since then.
robo hippy

 

[odie]

Wow.....a drill motor!

My first lathe experience wasn't quite so primitive!

I took woodshop and metal working classes while in high school, but never touched a lathe until 1982......and, that was with a 1950's vintage Shopsmith. I had the Shopsmith for 4-5 years before curiosity got the best of me! From the beginning, I really had little interest in woodturning, but things evolved.......now, woodturning is my most important creative outlet!

The Shopsmith isn't a bad lathe at all. It's a pretty good starting point for learning to turn. It's powered by 1/2hp motor (I think) with step pulleys for either 3 or 4 speeds (can't remember for sure) . I believe my first efforts were with some carving tools, but shortly after my "initiation", I purchased a few real lathe tools.....some carbon steel and a 6-pc Sears Craftsman set of HSS tools. After the first attempts, I knew I needed some help, and I purchased a couple of old lathe books printed in the 40's or 50's, if I recall correctly. There was a lot of "trial and error" in those efforts.......and a couple of flying wooden missiles that could have been pretty serious, if I had been in the line of fire! (I thank my lucky stars!) When I purchased a Sorby bowl gouge from a Shopsmith catalogue, I believe that was the point when I was really hooked on this woodturning........(I still have that Sorby bowl gouge, but it's now completely sharpened down to the nub!)

My 2nd lathe was a Northwood lathe with Reeves drive......better than the Shopsmith, but still not that great. Northwood was an importer that came and went in the mid 1980's.

I'm now on my 3rd lathe, an Aussie Woodfast lathe purchased in 1992. I have absolutely no desire to purchase a newer lathe.......the Woodfast is a professional grade lathe and will produce fine quality turnings, if the operator is good enough to make it happen! One major improvement I've done to the Woodfast is to get rid of the step pulleys and install a variable speed drive around 2006........I'll NEVER go back to changing belts!

In the late 1980's, I purchased a book by Richard Raffan, and that was one of the best things I ever did! From that point on, I knew a little something about sharpening lathe tools......time, and practice sharpening lathe tools has made the overall experience something that became more pleasure....than frustration! (Although, frustration makes a come-back on a regular basis! Ha!) That book is well used and dog-eared! I also purchased Raffan's first VHS video, when it became available. Except for a couple of years in the mid 1990's, I have been turning steadily for the past 30 years.

ooc

 

[John Lawson]

My first lathe experience was abortive. I have always loved turned wooden chess sets, and fantasized for years about getting a lathe. For my birthday in 1989, my wife bought me this Craftsman lathe (photo 1). It was $110, and they tried to sell me a three-year service contract for $96. (I said no.) Morse taper #1, 3/4" x 16tpi spindle thread. You can see two boxes containing a set of Sorby tools, and Shopsmith scrapers that were a gift from a friend over 25 years ago. I still have the tools. With it, I turned the two prototype chessmen (photo 2), plus others with more or less satisfactory results.

Six weeks later, I lost my job, and ended up working two jobs for the next ten years to make ends meet. The environment in the garage promoted rust, and the lathe got into bad shape. I gave it away to a neighbor who helped us get ready to move to Texas in 2007.

About two years ago, my wife bought me another lathe for Christmas, a Delta LA200 (photo 3). I turn more now, and I've gotten better (photo 4), but not much.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I suppose that my first "lathe" was a Sears Router Crafter which means that it also is an ornamental lathe. Using it is a trying exercise in tedious set up and tweaking and I never produced anything worth keeping. Anyway, that was enough to set back my interest in turning by about a quarter century.

I still have the Router Crafter and recently cleaned it up and got it in working order. I intend to make another go at using it with the intention of making a barley twist.

My first "real" lathe was a Delta 1440 Iron Bed with a Reeves-style mechanical variable speed drive. It gave me the opportunity to learn more than I really wanted to know about maintaining and repairing low quality mechanical variable speed drives. Between repairs, I occasionally had the opportunity to turn a few things.

My first good lathe was a Jet mini -- a real work horse.

I got my ultimate lathe almost a year ago -- a Robust American Beauty. Life is good.

 

[Scott Austin]

My first experience was when I was a senior in high school, and the last 2 days of school my teacher let me do whatever I wanted. So, I tried the lathe. It was a powermatic (probably a 90). No instruction. I just chucked up a chunk of wood and went with it. Next thing I knew I was walking to the other side of the shop to retrieve my gouge. That was it for 12 years. I got into woodworking again recently, and had no thoughts about a lathe till a guy at work sold me one for $100. It was a duracraft 12-36. It had a roundbed that I hated. Every knob on it had been broken off. You had to keep a 9/16" and a 12mm wrench pretty close to adjust anything. And of course, it had step pulleys to change speed. It sat in my garage for 3 months, because I remembered the high school experience, and I wasn't touching it without some instruction. I took a class at the woodcraft store in Louisville, KY and Haven't looked back. I got pretty good at spindle turning. I practiced and turned at least one project a day. Then I took a bowl turning class at the same store, and fell in love. I have since upgraded to a Nova DVR 2024, and I turn at least one bowl, box, or platter per day. No matter what is going on that lathe gets at least 2 hours of use per day. 7 days a week. The practice is paying off as I am getting better daily.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Mine was a 14" Montgomery Ward. Believe the manufacturer was ToolKraft. It had a universal motor with "variable speed" dial and a fairly noisy cogged belt driving it. The intent was to do some table legs, and I believe eight were actually turned on it in its time with me. The major concern was price, because we were raising children at the time, so it had to do. I got to playing with the big iron at the university and realized that the Wards was not going to do much faceplate work. It did, however, teach me the value of "cutting the wood as it wishes to be cut" to quote Frank Pain, the author of the only purely woodturning book I even bought. Any attempt to bully the work was futile. The flimsy construction and poor power just wouldn't allow it.

SWMBO allowed me to spend a chunk of a large per diem check from an extended period of temporary duty on a Delta 46-204 back in 82. Suffered with the Masterchuck until this new thing called a scroll chuck made its appearance. My first Nova made it possible to do more turning and less fussing. I finally bought a couple of "bowl" gouges too.

Picked up the 3000 from an ad here, and have been delighted with him. Won't do table legs, but he's done thousands of short pieces from ornaments through the full 15 3/4. Makes an ideal lathe for my close-quarters shop. Amazing what you can afford once the tuition's paid. But I don't see another lathe coming up. This one'll have to break before I do.

 

[egsiegel]

the first contact I had with a lathe was when someone in a sculpture class in college asked the professor if they could try turning. A few minutes later she was standing there with a gouge bent at 90 degrees due to a bad catch...that was when I knew I had to try this!

After I graduated I bought a Rockwell 11", 4 speed lathe and a set of tools. total cost was $179 if I remember correctly. I used that lathe for 25 years (on and off) until my wife bought me a Jet 1642.

The Rockwell is for sale if anyone is interested :cool2:

 

[Sean Boyle]

like Rick my first experiance with a lathe was grade 8 woodworking. The teacher was not going to let me use the lathe because I am left handed however althought I write left handed I do all other thing like golf and catching a ball as a right handed person I was able to show the teacher I was able to use it properly and my love for the lathe started there. Fast forward almost 40 years my wife was restoring an old rocking chair and needed a easy way of sanding some spindles so I made her a redneck lathe. It work for the purpose and was even set up with variable speed foot control. This was my insperation to get a real lathe.

 

[Lawrence Tarnoff]

First lathe

I'm just starting with my first lathe -- a Rikon midi. I've been making sawdust for the better part of 40 years and have always been fascinated by beautiful turnings. My first little project was a small bowl turned from a piece of hard maple sandwiched between two pieces of walnut. I did fine when I had the piece snug between the head and tail stocks, but had three episodes of the piece shooting off the lathe when using the bowl gouge to hollow the inside. Didn't get hit, but it scared the woodchips out of me. Nonetheless, I finished the bowl and my bride was duly impressed. I think I'm hooked.