nova ornamental turner

[Bill Alston]

These are some of my tools. The top one is a commercial router cutter, the other two shop made.



For work on the end. One fixed, one adjustable.



Mounted cutter with safety shield removed for clarity.

 

[Bill Alston]

It’s been suggested that some lathes don’t run fast enough to give a clean cut. Obviously depends on the model of lathe.

Conversely, some routers (if it’s done this way) run a bit too fast. You can get machines with what I believe to be an ideal (adjustable) speed range but they aren’t cheap. I was lucky enough to be able to slow down the lowest speed on my router by adjusting the potentiometer inside. It doesn’t appear to have affected the highest speed which is handy.

If you have, or can get access to a metal lathe the tools are easy enough to make using small pieces of HSS for the cutters.

 

[RichColvin]

I looked at these type of things a couple of years back. I ended up cobbling this together.

View attachment 76212

It’s a small standard X Y Table from eBay for which I machined a custom Router mount. I reduced the speed on the router and I’ve made some of my own cutters using small HSS tool bits.

The overall setup obviously moves the cutter from the lathe headstock to the router and the workpiece to the headstock compared to that in the original post above. The setup worked well in tests but I’ve not got round to using it yet apart from that. These type of things work best with dense timbers which aren’t always easy to source at a good price.

What prompted you to add the plexiglass screen, and what has been your experience with it so far?

 

[Bill Alston]

I made the Polycarbonate screen for safety reasons. It would not be difficult to inadvertently touch any moving parts. Also, should a cutter come lose …

The setup works very well. I did contemplate copying the JaHo but I had concerns with the use of a rotary table. Whilst an RT offers greater flexibility with the number of divisions available I just didn’t think it necessary. I believed, and still do that an indexing plate offered a much simpler, easier and cheaper solution. It’s also very easy to pre mark the plate to avoid making indexing mistakes. This is mine, it looks messy but is easy to use. Once you’ve chosen the spacing it’s just a matter of dropping the detent pin in the relevant coloured hole.



The biggest issue for me has been sourcing dense timbers to get nice crisp cuts. Boxwood and African Blackwood are expensive over here. I have been meaning to experiment using wood hardener on other timbers but I’ve not got round to it yet.

 

[Bill Alston]

I watched the video of the JaHo in action several times. There was a lot of twiddling dials for the position and depth of cut.
I wanted something easier and more repeatable. An indexing plate solved one issue and a depth stop added to the table dealt with the other. Circled in red here.