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First lathe
- Thread starter Webb Willmott
- Start date
My Dad's 1948 10ER Shop Smith that I inherited.
I did a lot of "scrape and sand" turnings on that rig.
Photo taken in 1973
I did a lot of "scrape and sand" turnings on that rig.
Photo taken in 1973
The old Harbor Freight mini lathe with the genuine HF "Professional" HSS gouges (still use them). A decent chuck, grinder, and wolverine jig probably cost more than the lathe and tools combined. I still think it is a good enough machine to start with but wish the minimum speed was slower. It would have helped with multi axis turning.
Don't have a picture of it but my first one was my dad's and it was a craftsman two pipe with the nail point for a live center, you had to oil the center to make it live. He had the 5 piece set of tools from craftsman with it which were tool steel and I still use them. Lathe is long gone.
Same, an old Taiwanese lathe with 6" throw all cast iron, no chucks in those days, just a face plate. It was sold about 40 years ago
Dave Landers
Beta Tester
My first lathe was home-made. Plans were in the April 1987 issue of Wood magazine. Used it for like 20 years. Don't have a pic of it setup, but here's me working on it.
Baltic Birch plywood bed ways, laminated hard maple head/tail stock, particle board base. Wrote away to somewhere for the spindles (listed in the back of the magazine). Motor and pulleys from a surplus catalog...
Don't have it anymore, but some of the pieces have been repurposed and so some of it's still around.
Actually technically this was my second lathe - I inherited a small bench-top metal lathe (Delta or Rockwell or Craftsman - can't remember). Had to sell it to get the money to build the wooden wood lathe.
Baltic Birch plywood bed ways, laminated hard maple head/tail stock, particle board base. Wrote away to somewhere for the spindles (listed in the back of the magazine). Motor and pulleys from a surplus catalog...
Don't have it anymore, but some of the pieces have been repurposed and so some of it's still around.
Actually technically this was my second lathe - I inherited a small bench-top metal lathe (Delta or Rockwell or Craftsman - can't remember). Had to sell it to get the money to build the wooden wood lathe.
Can’t remember the maker but my dad had bought a whole garage set of tools. Sight unseen. In in was a lathe he had no use for. It went to storage under the porch. Out of the rain but exposed to the elements. Years later I decide I want to make my own turkey calls. If only I had a lathe! Drag it out and plug it up and it worked until I sold it. It was Cast bed with a 3/4” spindle. Replaced with a craftsman garage find.
I sold a big piece of furniture the first day of a show, and thought it was time for a new toy. I went to a turner at the show and asked him if he knew of any lathes for sale. He said he had one he was going to put in the paper the next day, so I bought it. A 4 speed Atlas. First thing I did was replace the 1/2 hp motor with a 1 horse motor. Built the stand out of 2 sections of laminated beam, about 4 inches thick, with one section being a lower shelf. Some link belt for the drive and away I went. Best Christmas present I ever bought myself! I upgraded to a 3520A in about 2 years. The rest is history....
robo hippy
robo hippy
My first lathe was horrible. Fortunately, I didn’t realize that until later.
I can’t remember ever seeing a lathe but I wanted one because I heard they could make round wooden things. I wanted to make something for my son to use in architecture school, a dispenser for rolls of tracing paper. The guy at Home Depot said they had a lathe but it was way up on top of the racks and no one had ever asked about it. I took home a little Ridgid, a copy of the old Sears single tube lathe and bought a set of HSS tools from Sears on the way home.
It might have been the worst lathe ever (as I discovered later). It was difficult to get the tailstock aligned with the headstock. Adjustments were sloppy, tool rest flimsy, motor underpowered, but it spun wood. The best thing about it was an excellent short course on woodturning in the back of the manual - from that I learned everything I needed to get started and made the dispenser from a piece of 2x2. Learned to use the skew for that, didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid of it.
A few months after using it that one time, I noticed the lathe gathering dust and decided to make me a bowl - glued up a stack of squares of 4/4 red oak board and turned a bowl on the face plate, it was so easy - my sister loved it and kept it the rest of her life. That got me hooked - ordered a new Jet1642 from Woodcraft, bought some books by Richard Raffan and Mike Darlow which taught me so much. Started making all kinds of things, began teaching friends, and found out about a club and met other wood turners. Never watched a turning video.
Even took a couple of bowl-turning classes, the first from a guy who really shouldn’t have been teaching anything, and the second a few years later when David Marks came to Knoxville. What an inspirational teacher - and what a nice guy!
I gave the little tube lathe and some tools to someone else to play with. I still have the first turning and the original Sears tools, use some often.
JKJ
I can’t remember ever seeing a lathe but I wanted one because I heard they could make round wooden things. I wanted to make something for my son to use in architecture school, a dispenser for rolls of tracing paper. The guy at Home Depot said they had a lathe but it was way up on top of the racks and no one had ever asked about it. I took home a little Ridgid, a copy of the old Sears single tube lathe and bought a set of HSS tools from Sears on the way home.
It might have been the worst lathe ever (as I discovered later). It was difficult to get the tailstock aligned with the headstock. Adjustments were sloppy, tool rest flimsy, motor underpowered, but it spun wood. The best thing about it was an excellent short course on woodturning in the back of the manual - from that I learned everything I needed to get started and made the dispenser from a piece of 2x2. Learned to use the skew for that, didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid of it.
A few months after using it that one time, I noticed the lathe gathering dust and decided to make me a bowl - glued up a stack of squares of 4/4 red oak board and turned a bowl on the face plate, it was so easy - my sister loved it and kept it the rest of her life. That got me hooked - ordered a new Jet1642 from Woodcraft, bought some books by Richard Raffan and Mike Darlow which taught me so much. Started making all kinds of things, began teaching friends, and found out about a club and met other wood turners. Never watched a turning video.
Even took a couple of bowl-turning classes, the first from a guy who really shouldn’t have been teaching anything, and the second a few years later when David Marks came to Knoxville. What an inspirational teacher - and what a nice guy!
I gave the little tube lathe and some tools to someone else to play with. I still have the first turning and the original Sears tools, use some often.
JKJ