• September 2025 Turning Challenge: Cindy Drozda Finial Box! (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Dave Potts, People's Choice in the August 2025 Turning Challenge (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Paul May for "Slipstream" being selected as Turning of the Week for September 8, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

13 Things You Can Make With A Wood Lathe

Odie

Odie

Panning for Montana gold, with Betsy, the mule!
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
7,504
Likes
12,755
Location
Missoula, MT

I'll bet a few of the guys on here can add to this list.....!

spoon
bowl
rolling pin
candle holder
goblet
honey dipper
salt and pepper shakers
vase
furniture legs
pens
bracelet
lamp
chess pieces

=o=
 
Odie said:

I'll bet a few of the guys on here can add to this list.....!

spoon
bowl
rolling pin
candle holder
goblet
honey dipper
salt and pepper shakers
vase
furniture legs
pens
bracelet
lamp
chess pieces

=o=
Click to expand...
Done all of those my additions are:
balusters
shrink boxes
cremation urns
Wooden nut and bolts
Tankard
spin tops
walking stick/canes
spinning wheel parts like bobbins, spokes & distaff
loom parts
Will have to think about it as I am sure there are others.
 
-Custom dowels
-Gear shift knobs
-Drink coasters
-Components for pens and other similar items
-Table lamps
-Toys (yo-yo) and toy parts (wheels for wood cars)
-Handwheels for tools/machines
-Lace bobbins (oops, repeat from Don)
-Hats

Ahhh! I've got a few repeats here. You guys, quit taking my ideas!
 
Daniel Bartlett said:
sawdust
Click to expand...
A coworker once handed me a few scraps of aromatic cedar, suggesting I could make something with it. The next Monday, I brought him a ziplock bag of cedar potpourri. (Shavings, no dust.)
 
hollow form
Gavel
Whistle
Wand
Pool que
Spheres
Globes

Table tops
Napkin rings
Mouldings
picture frames
Drums
flutes
Sculptures
Nut cracker

The box folks are gonna be wondering why it took 7 trys to list one of the most popular items
I didn’t count “shrink box”
 
Last edited:
You guys beat me to most things I've turned but here are a few more. Pepper mills and salt mills, handles for kitchen items/kits, end tables for living room and bedroom, bread knife (multi axis turning), saur kraut stomper, candle holders, bearings for farm tractor disc. I'll think of some more after I sign out.
 
Make a new woodturner, change a life.
Can make someone happy on a good day.
Occasionally might make something that may not have been made before.
Can make an epic mess in any shop.
I am good at making tools shorter, not with a lathe but for a lathe.
 
Steve Tiedman said:
-Custom dowels
-Gear shift knobs
-Drink coasters
-Components for pens and other similar items
-Table lamps
-Toys (yo-yo) and toy parts (wheels for wood cars)
-Handwheels for tools/machines
-Lace bobbins (oops, repeat from Don)
-Hats

Ahhh! I've got a few repeats here. You guys, quit taking my ideas!
Click to expand...
Yup I have done all of those too
 
Steve Tiedman said:
Lace bobbins (oops, repeat from Don)
Click to expand...
I was referring to bobbins for spinning wheels, but I learned to make lace bobbins when the MWA had a booth at St. Catherine's collage in St. Paul. The adjacent booth was some ladys demoing lace making and we started making bobbins for them. The lady's then gave me a piece of lace in exchange that I still have somewhere I think.
 
Don Wattenhofer said:
I was referring to bobbins for spinning wheels, but I learned to make lace bobbins when the MWA had a booth at St. Catherine's collage in St. Paul. The adjacent booth was some ladys demoing lace making and we started making bobbins for them. The lady's then gave me a piece of lace in exchange that I still have somewhere I think.
Click to expand...
The summer of 1996, about 7-8 months as a woodturner having only made pens, a lady stopped at my farmer's market booth, where I was selling pens, and showed me a lace bobbin. A what? I was clueless about lace bobbins, and even more clueless to making them, but I agreed to make them. And boy, was I humbled, and I failed miserably, and I had to turn her down. There was no way I was going to match the craftsmanship of what she brought to me and asked if I could make for her.

A couple years later I made those lace bobbins in the form of a chess set.
 
Darryl Fective said:
Nobody said funnels yet?? 🫣
Click to expand...

I could get my "Box 'O Shame" off the shelf and make a list and pictures. But due to space limitations I put only small severe error it it.

For the overall list:

I could look through my photos and list many dozens of things but the real work would checking all the messages so far avoid duplication and putting people to sleep.

Hey, @Odie , here's your chance to put all this in one idea file. But the conundrum - should a comprehensive list include major variations? For example instead of listing "bowl" should it include large/small, shallow/deep, green-dry, turned or natural edge, major form differences, foot design, closed or flared, ??? And what about end/side grain? Burled, figured, boring? Boxes: variations, suction or tapered fit, function (fancy for jewelry, functional for salt? Utility vs decorative?

You could write a book. With photos. And artist name for credit. A years-long project! :)
But a potentially good resource for temporary creativity mental blocks we all have.
Wait, I already have several books like that.... (but they are all too focused on one type of object.)

JKJ
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top