I retired from the oilfield about 4 years ago and have been spending my time building furniture, mostly for family and friends. I've been acquiring equipment for a number of years but mostly collecting figured wood for future projects.
While in college in the 1970's my dad was given a cheap lathe that I played around with for a couple years and loved it, but once I moved away I lost interest. Recently I've been getting the bug, partly because of some of the wood I have but also to have projects that can be finished in hours or days instead of weeks or months.
I'm interested in hollow turnings and have access to large chunks of pecan, live oak and post oak. Much of the post oak in this area has surprisingly nice figure and I can't wait to see what it looks like in a turned vessel.
As far as I can tell Brazos Valley Turners is the closest club so I'll be contacting them shortly.
I need a big lathe and am considering the Vicmarc VL600 if the electricals can be converted to 230V/3-phase without too much trouble. I spoke to Marco yesterday, they're planning a run of 6 units by mid-year, but they will be set up for 415V/3-phase. I'm trying to get more information but he couldn't tell me much.
While in college in the 1970's my dad was given a cheap lathe that I played around with for a couple years and loved it, but once I moved away I lost interest. Recently I've been getting the bug, partly because of some of the wood I have but also to have projects that can be finished in hours or days instead of weeks or months.
I'm interested in hollow turnings and have access to large chunks of pecan, live oak and post oak. Much of the post oak in this area has surprisingly nice figure and I can't wait to see what it looks like in a turned vessel.
As far as I can tell Brazos Valley Turners is the closest club so I'll be contacting them shortly.
I need a big lathe and am considering the Vicmarc VL600 if the electricals can be converted to 230V/3-phase without too much trouble. I spoke to Marco yesterday, they're planning a run of 6 units by mid-year, but they will be set up for 415V/3-phase. I'm trying to get more information but he couldn't tell me much.