×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Building a diy woodlathe :-)

(OP)
Hello
Planning to Build a diy woodlathe
- What kind of linear guides are there should I use prism-, flatbed or 1 or 2 pipes ?
- What is the best CNC-steel lathe bed construction I can make ?


RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

A woodlathe doesn't need precision ways- you're doing your work with a chisel. My dad used to build his homemade woodlathes using two heavy angles facing one another with legs down to form a deep C section with a slot between them. It requires no machining, and is plenty accurate enough for a woodlathe.

RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

You could make a usable wood lathe with a 2"x6" for a bed a and a wooden tail stock held down with a "C" clamp.
I am not suggesting that you make one this way, just illustrating that a high degree of precision is not required.
When I was about 14 I used a hand drill with a fixed mount accessory to make a small lathe. I fastened the drill horizontally to a piece of wood. I made a fixed wooden tail stock.
Three small finishing nails driven into one end of a small piece of wood and chucked into the drill was the drive and a single nail driven into the other end of the workpiece and running in the hole of the tailstock finished it off.
All work pieces had to be the same length.
It worked and I had fun. (As often happens with first time users, the first attempt put a chisel into the ceiling. Beware of your attack angle.)
Use what you have.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Required accuracy will be defined by the product you wish to produce. On my Robust, the headstock was off-angle just enough to produce a 1mm gap between centerlines when the tailstock was brought up. This played merry havoc on me when making pens, where the finished wall thickness might be 0.5mm. This required some filing of the headstock way guides. If all you're making is bowls, accuracy of some properly assembled 2x4s is generally good enough.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Exactly- even the mass-market manufactured woodlathes you might buy instead of DIYing are going to have precision issues. My home-made one has some simple adjustments to get the centres to line up, which you must re-adjust each time you move the tailstock. I don't make pens though- for that you'd need the precision of a metal lathe.

If you're doing bowls, you sure don't want it to be made from 2x6s- you want some mass and deadness in the design to keep it from walking away from you when the stock is rough and unbalanced...

RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Investigate the secondhand market. Over here in the UK a large number of superb machines dating from the 1960's - both metalworking and woodworking - were released onto the market when the secondary schools stopped teaching metalwork and woodwork and disposed of their assets. Quality stuff from the likes of Dominion, Union, and Wadkin turn up at good prices and are better built than just about anything being produced today.

RE: Building a diy woodlathe :-)

Excellent suggestion- if you can get a heavy cast iron machine it will serve you much better than anything made of steel, especially if you intend to spin anything heavy and unbalanced...

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources